


The Kindness

by TheRoarOfAtlas



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Because He's My Favorite, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, F/M, From Ages Ago, Hurt/Comfort, Lone Wanderer Spoon, Long as hell, My First Work in This Fandom, Rewrite, Seven Foot Tall Ghoul, The Author Regrets Nothing, Woman In Disguise Trope, You're A Girl?! Trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 19:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11538825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRoarOfAtlas/pseuds/TheRoarOfAtlas
Summary: So! This was the first thing I ever wrote for Fallout. I decided to revisit it, do a little proofreading/retooling (I was much younger when I began this tale; I wrote it over the course of three-ish years) and then pop it over here."An oddly-named scavenger acquires a contract of uncertain consequence."[x-posted to Tumblr]Enjoy!





	1. Scavenger-Go Ahead-Scraps-Acquisition-Interlude

It had been a quiet night in Underworld. Cerberus' processors whirred quietly as the robot made its rounds about the ghoul lobby. Inside The Ninth Circle, Charon leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes at nothing at all.

 

_Bored. Bored bored bored. So bored_. The ghoul groaned mentally. There hadn't been a single rowdy outburst in almost a week. After he had tossed Patches out, there had hardly been a voice in the place that was over a whisper. The soft drone of conversation threatened to put Charon to sleep. A low growl of discontent rumbled through his chest. The sparse patrons cast nervous glances in the seven-foot tall ghoul's direction, all used to his somewhat volatile nature. But they knew they were safe as long as Ahzrukhal didn't give him the go-ahead.

 

The door to the lobby creaked open and a bundled-up figure slipped in. Ahzrukhal perked up noticeably, a smile creasing the leathery remainder of his facial skin. “Well well, lookee here! We got us a smoothskin I've never seen before.” Ahzrukhal rasped. “Welcome to The Ninth Circle, stranger. Take a seat and tell ol' Ahzrukhal your problems.”

 

“I've heard quite a bit about you, Mr. Ahzrukhal.” The stranger murmured. “What I need right now though, is vodka.” He began rummaging in the large rucksack that had been slung across over his shoulder. “I have caps, of course. But I also have a few bottles of whiskey I'll gladly let you take off my hands.”

 

Charon's patchy eyebrows rose. _Easy there, smoothskin._

 

“This is good stuff. Where you been scavenging, stranger?” Ahzrukhal wheezed, holding one of the bottles up to the light.

 

The stranger shot the ghoul a quick grin from under the wide brim of his hat, pulling down a thick bandanna to do so. “That's for me to know and you to never figure out.”

 

Ahzrukhal _harrumphed_ , pouring the stranger his preferred poison as the other man re-buckled his rucksack.

 

...

 

The stranger was in The Ninth Circle every night for almost two weeks. He had a quiet way about him, and never seemed to take his hat or bandanna off. Every evening he came in with a few more bottles of finer-grade liquor to trade for his bottle of vodka, which he would then nurse for several hours as he swapped tales with the residents of Underworld.

 

Charon was always there, ever constant in his guard. The stranger seemed keen on taking a seat at the table closest to the glowering ghoul, but never actually attempted to converse with him. He didn't even really acknowledge his presence. Until tonight, that is. Charon caught a cautious brown-eyed look from under that wide-brimmed hat. The smoothskin quickly looked away, hauling his dusty bandanna up and jamming his hat lower. “Does he ever let you sit?” The stranger seemed to be deliberately keeping his tone light, like he was trying to be subtle.

 

Charon shifted his weight, re-crossing his arms. _A question. One that I can't answer._ “Talk to Ahzrukhal.”

 

The man grumbled into his vodka, “How about I fuckin' don't. That guy makes my skin crawl, and it _isn't_ because of his looks.” Charon's arms flexed across his chest with the pent-up energy of agreeing wholeheartedly with the stranger. “So he doesn't let you talk, either. Freely, anyway.”

 

Charon grunted.

 

“M' name's Spoon. I know yours is Charon. _He_ told me. He also mentioned that you're under some sort of contract. Is that right, or is it just a bunch of shit?” The stranger queried softly, swishing the vodka around in his battered mug.

 

Charon's eyes narrowed. _That fucking prick needs to be more careful about who he tells this shit. I don't feel the need to take on a smoothskin army in his defense._ The ghoul grunted again. It wasn't necessarily a noise of confirmation, just a noise. Charon had found a variety of ways to get around his orders when he needed to.

 

“Strange. Alright then. One more question, and then I promise I'll be off to Carol's for the night.” The stranger leaned forward in an almost conspiratorial manner, pushing his hat back a little so he could make eye contact with Charon. “Are you content here? Is this...is this what you want?” He asked, quiet enough that Charon could have ignored him.

 

Charon abruptly felt like the room was too small, like everyone was watching them. He swallowed hard, tightening his arms across his chest. Ahzrukhal, it seemed, had finally picked up on the discomfort of his 'employee', and his voice rang out across the bar. “Charon! Get this waste out of here.”

 

Charon's head snapped up, noting Ahzrukhal's annoyed look when the bartender pointed to Patches. The ragged ghoul, already falling apart and heavily inebriated, couldn't even run as with three easy strides Charon was on him. Charon grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, seething inwardly at the obvious show Ahzrukhal was putting on for the smoothskin. The bartender probably would dub it, “ _displaying Charon's prowess_ ”, or some other equally sanctimonious bullshit. In The Ninth Circle Charon was both warning and promise, and Ahzrukhal never missed a chance to display the power he held.

 

Charon hadn't noticed that the stranger ( _Spoon?_ ) had followed him until he had deposited Patches in front of The Chop Shop and turned to go back to the bar. He almost ran over the smoothskin, large fists clenching tight enough to hurt for a second.

 

“ _Easy_ big fella'. You didn't answer my question, exactly. But...” Spoon glanced down at Patchwork, “I think I can make a safe assumption.”

 

Charon snarled, shoving past the stranger with a clipped, “ _Talk to Ahzrukhal_.” A hand caught his arm though, the sensation so foreign it stopped the ghoul in his tracks. The fingers seemed cold to Charon's constantly fever-hot skin, and it jarred him a little. Never mind the fact that the smoothskin was _touching_ him in the first place.

 

But all Spoon did was sigh, somewhat heavily, as he patted Charon's arm. “Give me a week.” He muttered, tilting his hat back again to look at Charon. The ghoul was highly confused, to say the least. Spoon headed off to his room, and Charon returned to his corner, brain whirling with what the smoothskin might have meant.

 

He didn't dare to get excited, oh no. Too many hands had been on his contract. Sometimes within minutes of each other. He snorted, ignoring what felt like little electrical jolts running through his body.

 

_Not excited, and **certainly** not holding my breath._

 

Spoon was gone in the morning, payment for his bed bundled in a ragged square of cloth under Carol's pillow. Winthrop mentioned hopefully that the smoothskin might bring him some scrap metal to fix the rattling vents. “ _I'm getting too stiff to scavenge it myself_.”

 

Charon had rolled his eyes at that. _That smoothskin doesn't owe you jack, old man._ As much as he didn't want to hope though, Charon found himself counting the days until the end of the week. He stood up a little straighter every time the door creaked open, hating the sickening drop in his stomach when it was just another ghoul here for their fix.

 

A week passed and the hope that Charon had been denying the existence of eased quietly into disappointment. He knew that it had been a futile dream from the start, he was a permanent fixture of this bar and no scavenger with a goofy hat was going to change that.

 

Despite his dour view, his daydreams were _full_ of the smoothskin striding into the bar in a blaze of glory, venom spewing from his mouth as he tore Ahzrukhal a new one and took Charon's contract. Though the scenario would change (sometimes the scavenger blew the bartender to kingdom come and emerged triumphant from the rubble like Grognak, sometimes he crept in at night and craftily slid the contract out of Ahzrukhal's pocket while he slept), the ending remained the same.

 

“ _C'mon partner, we've got work to do_.”

 

Charon shook his head at himself. _What a pipe dream._ In all his years of service, he had yet to come across an employer who saw him as anything more than a killing machine. Some of them started out nice enough but just like his daydreams they all ended the same, with the large ghoul being sold off to the highest bidder in exchange for caps or resources.

 

On a few occasions his employer had gone down in a hail of gunfire and Charon was _forced_ to stop fighting, order-bound to dig through his employer's pockets with shaking hands and take his contract. Only to press it into the grip of the next person he came across, _for good or ill_.

 

His leathers creaked as his arms tightened across his chest. _I'm so damn tired of this._

 

...

 

On the eleventh day, Spoon returned. He seemed to be in a bad way, according to what Charon overheard from the bar patrons. The story went that he had run into some Talon Company undesirables that had it out for him, and it was only through Willow's sharpshooting that he managed to escape.

 

Yet as the day drew to a close, that familiar figure darkened the doorway to The Ninth Circle. He was instantly swarmed by excited ghouls, clamoring to hear his tale. He brushed them off though, murmuring that he needed a drink before embarking on his story. The young man threw some caps on the bar and Ahzrukhal tossed a bottle of vodka his way. Spoon tore the cap off and started drinking straight from the bottle, forgoing his usual chipped mug. “Alright, alright. Settle down. First, I need to know where Carol is. She ain't at her place.” Spoon finally said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

“She headed over to Snowflake for her usual skinning.” One of the ghouls offered, giggling at her own choice of words. Spoon nodded his thanks.

 

“Good. As far as my story goes, ain't much to tell. I'll be on my way tomorrow. Now that I've got the Talons on my tail, I don't want anyone else getting hurt.” His eyes strayed to Charon, and he slid off his stool, nodding his thanks to Ahzrukhal for the vodka. “I'll be back later. I have to go thank Willow, and I still have a whole bunch of goodies for Tulip. Oh! And Winthrop's scrap.” He grinned, giving his pack a shake so everyone could hear the heavy _clank_ of the metal.

 

A few of the patrons followed him out, no doubt interested in whatever he had to barter to Tulip. Charon sighed, maybe a little _louder_ than necessary as he relaxed against the wall again. He should have known that the smoothskin would forget him. They always did.

 

…

 

Spoon was back within the hour, his shoulders somewhat tense as he took his customary table near Charon. “Sorry I'm late.”

 

Charon thought his head might fall clean off his shoulders if this smoothskin kept surprising him.

 

Spoon grinned up at him suddenly, face much paler under its layers of grime than Charon remembered. “Those Talon fuckers followed me for a few days. I was starting to get worried. I picked most of 'em off in the metros, but it was a little touch and go between them, the ferals and the Big Greens across the way. Lucky for me Willow's a crack shot, otherwise I'd have been mincemeat.”

 

Charon remained silent.

 

Spoon looked back down at his bottle, seeming deep in thought. “You're pissed at me, ain't you. I figured you would be. I really _am_ sorry I'm a couple days behind. I'm horrible at schedules and shit. Not my strong point. But,” He continued, reaching into his rucksack and beginning to forage around. “I can make it up to you if you can hang on for a few more minutes.”

 

Charon's brow furrowed as Spoon pulled a few good-sized bundles out of his bag. The ghoul's eyes widened when he heard the unmistakable sound of caps _clink_ ing against each other. Spoon rose and slung his rucksack back over his shoulder, shooting the ghoul a teasing wink.

 

The scavenger sauntered over to the bar, and leaned in close to Ahzrukhal. Charon strained his ears and cursed inwardly when he couldn't hear a thing. Spoon spoke for several minutes in a low tone, seeming passionate about whatever the fuck he was saying as he used his hands to illustrate his points. Charon's body jolted when Ahzrukhal reached out a hand and ran it down the side of the smoothskin's face, and the large ghoul found himself fighting a wave of nausea, clearing his throat and looking away.

 

Spoon gestured to Charon abruptly and Ahzrukhal drew his hand back in a quick jerk. The bouncer did his best to appear bored and like he wasn't paying attention as Spoon handed over one of his bundles. Ahzrukhal made a show of _slowly_ counting the caps, bunching piles of fifty while Spoon looked on, leaning against the counter and continuing to slug off his bottle.

 

The bartending ghoul finally nodded after what seemed like an eternity, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out...something. Spoon took whatever it was and carefully tucked it away into his own jacket. Charon forced down a growl at how Ahzrukhal's fingers lingered on the smoothskin's for far too long.

 

The bouncer hadn't realized he had been holding his breath until Spoon casually sat back down and he released it all in a quiet _whoosh_. “Well big guy... _Charon_ , that is, how would you like to go on an adventure?” Spoon's smile was genuine this time, not some cheesy showman's grin as he showed the ghoul the worn piece of paper he had gotten.

 

Charon's breath caught in his throat, and it was with shaking legs that he lowered himself into the chair next to Spoon. Spoon murmured something sympathetic, pointing towards his bottle of vodka in an unspoken _go ahead_. Charon took a healthy gulp, his eyes watering at the strength of the stuff. “How did you manage to get my contract?” He finally said, his voice coarser than usual from disuse.

 

Spoon looked worried. “I bought it, of course. He wanted me to kill Greta, y'know. But I couldn't. She's not the easiest person to be around, but nobody fucking is anymore. I refused that, so he asked for two thousand caps. I figured he probably thought I wouldn't be able to come up with 'em. I could, I just needed time to scavenge. I had to go a little more...out of the way than usual.” Spoon leaned back in his chair, balancing on the rear legs. “I got a little over two thou' once I traded most of my junk in Rivet City. I _hoped_ he might be greedy enough to take a thousand, if he got to see it upfront. I did have the other thou', just in case. And the rest is history.”

 

“That rat bastard got my contract for _free_ and he just fleeced the shit out of you because you're too nice to kill his competition.” Charon snarled. “I'll go over the specifics of the contract with you in just a minute. Right now, I must take care of something.” He shoved his chair back from the table, and it was with measured steps that he made his way to the bar.

 

The room hushed and Ahzrukhal looked up from his caps, sensing something was amiss. “Ah, Charon. Have you come to say goodbye?” He rasped, that insufferably sleazy smile on his face.

 

“ _Yes_.” Charon spat, whipping the combat shotgun off his back and aiming down the sights. Ahzrukhal's face froze in a mask of almost comical shock as Charon blew his body apart with two cool trigger pulls; the bartender was dead before he hit the ground. Some of his blood splattered across Charon's face and Charon hastily wiped it off. The idea of that evil man's blood on his skin made his stomach clench queasily. He spat to the side, then turned on his heel as people seemed to realize what had just happened.

 

“ _Oh my God!_ ”

 

“ _He shot Ahzrukhal!_ ”

 

“ _He's gone feral!_ ”

 

The Ninth Circle was empty in less than thirty seconds. The only people left were the smoothskin, Charon himself, and what remained of Ahzrukhal. Charon came and sat back down next to Spoon, noting with a flash of amusement that the smoothskin seemed to be in shock. “Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor-bound to do as he commanded. But now, you are my employer and I will serve you, for good or ill.” The binding phrase came from him easily. He'd said it so many times before. _For good or ill_.

 

“Uh, you probably shouldn't have done that.” Spoon managed to choke out. Charon shrugged, flexing long-unused muscles with a sigh of satisfaction. The adrenaline felt _wonderful_. And the knowledge that Ahzrukhal would never touch or order him around again was almost its own reward. “No seriously, what if everyone thinks I ordered you to do that? They'll kill me!” Spoon continued, not noticing how Charon's eyes darkened.

 

“ _No one_ will lay a hand on you. Every ghoul here tonight was already eavesdropping on us. They all knew I was unhappy, but there was nothing any of them could do. Caps are scarce in Underworld, especially when you have your own addictions to manage.” Charon grumbled. “They'll view it as an act of mercy that you freed me from him.”

 

“O...Okay. If you're sure. I'm uh...I'm paid up at Carol's for the night, so you can come with me. Then tomorrow I've got to head out. Do you want to come with me, or do you have other stuff to do?” Spoon asked, obviously trying to avoid looking at the remains of the bartender on the floor.

 

Charon snorted. “You don't seem to understand how this works, Master. I am bound to you. You are my employer. And until you see fit to foist me off on someone, or someone offers you the right amount of caps, or someone somehow manages to get past me and blow your brains out, I will follow you.”

 

“Oh.” Spoon said weakly. “I thought that...I thought if I gave you your contract, you'd be free and you could kind of...choose whether you wanted to come along or not.”

 

“No. That is not how my contract works. But it was kind of you to think that you would free me after paying that many caps.” Charon hesitated, then carried on, “I know the only things you've seen me do probably don't strike you as fine displays of my skills. But I swear on my life, I will make my services worth your kindness.” _For good or ill_.

 

“Alright then.” Spoon stuck his hand out, cheerily seeming to ignore how Charon flinched at the speed of the action. “Let's shake on it, eh big guy?”

 

Charon stared down at his hand, well aware that the distrust was plain on his face. “Equals shake, and I am not your equal.”

 

Spoon made an exasperated noise, tangling his fingers with the tall ghoul's and moving them in a clumsy shaking motion. “If you're gonna' play it like that, at _least_ don't call me Master. Shit's fucked up.”

 

“What should I call you?” Charon asked. “Master was sufficient for my prior employers.”

 

Spoon shrugged. “Whatever the fuck you want to call me, I guess? Doesn't really matter to me. If you're gonna' be stuck with me for a while, you might as well call me something you like. Everyone else calls me Spoon though.”

 

“Very well. Spoon.” Charon could tell he had some adjusting to do.

 

“Let's get to bed, huh?” Spoon jerked his head towards the door. “I dunno about you, but it's late as shit and I am _exhausted_.” He extended a hand to his new companion, that strangely-genuine smile back again as he helped the ghoul up.

 

...

 

Carol was wearing a different dress. That was the first thing Charon realized when he took a cautious step into Carol's Place. It wasn't new. Nothing was new in this world that they lived in. But it was new to her. It was a gentle shade of purple. It made her look radiant, no pun intended.

 

Spoon smiled tiredly at the woman. “It suits you! Couldn't wait to put it on, eh?” He jibed with a wink.

 

“Oh _quiet_ , you. It's been so long since I wore something different.” The ghoul hushed him, looking worriedly up at Charon. “What's he doing with you, dear? I've heard a few rumors. Something happened to Ahzrukhal?”

 

“I bought his contract. Charon got...uh, really happy about it. So happy he shot Ahzrukhal in the face.” Spoon mumbled, seeming embarrassed.

 

Carol sucked in a breath. “So he's dead?”

 

Spoon nodded. “Yeah. Originally Ahzrukhal wanted me to kill Greta for the contract, but I worked out another deal.”

 

Carol's eyes welled up and she pressed her hands to her mouth. “Not my Greta.” She said softly.

 

“I don't doubt it.” Charon growled. “You and yours were his only competition. If I hadn't killed the bastard, he would have just gotten some other prick to do it.”

 

“Language, dear.” Carol scolded absently, hugging Spoon tight. The man yelped, and Carol quickly let go. “I'm so sorry dear! I forgot.” she said with a frown.

 

“I'll be okay, just a little tender still. No worries.” Spoon grimaced. “Is it alright if Charon stays here with me?”

 

“Of course sweetheart. Are you two hungry? I can see if I have some Cram left over that isn't as purple as this lovely dress.” Carol said with a dry chuckle. Spoon nodded, thanking Carol for letting them stay even after what had happened. Carol brushed him off though, smiling and saying that he was too kind for the Wastes.

 

_For good or ill_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters will be grouped together a bit differently from the original, because I used to write (and post) chapters in the breaks between my daily college courses. Which led to maddeningly tiny chapters. So this will have LESS chapters than the original, but more content overall due to the edits. Also I will put the names of the original chapters in the Chapter area.


	2. Metropolitan-Robo Butler-Snag-Preparations

They left at dawn the next morning.

 

Charon hadn't done much sleeping, feeling excitement race through him most of the night. He had taken apart his shotgun, cleaned, and reassembled it at least six times before Greta snapped at him to cut it out. Not even that could dampen his spirits though. He laid awake for hours, hoping against hope that he might have finally gotten lucky, and that this employer wouldn't see him as nothing but a weapon.

 

Spoon had awoken without fail, and they were ready to go in ten minutes, the young man whispering a promise that they'd eat breakfast once they got through the metros.

 

Charon had to keep a shit-eating grin off his face as they trekked out through the lobby and into the courtyard. Willow saw the pair and waved from her post. Spoon tossed her a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of good whiskey as “another thank you for saving my ass!” Willow caught the items and saluted as the man and ghoul ducked into the metros, successfully avoiding the super mutants that camped just beyond.

 

Going through the metro was relatively easy. Only a few feral ghouls arose, snapping, and Charon made quick work of them. Spoon _did_ get lost, admitting his inability to tell directions underground. Luckily they soon stumbled across the exit and emerged unscathed. Once they were back in the harsh sunlight, Spoon grinned up at Charon, tilting his hat back. “What say you to some breakfast, big guy?”

 

Charon frowned, looking around. “Permission to speak freely?”

 

Spoon's grin wavered. “Permission? Shit man, you're not a slave. I'm not going to demand you to be silent now that we're not around your friends. Granted! For uh, forever.”

 

“I would advise preparing food behind that hill. So we are not out in the open.” Charon pointed towards the hill in question, his face unreadable. Spoon agreed, grin firmly back in place as he jogged to the hill and promptly tumbled over the other side, not expecting the loose shale that coated the top. Charon rolled his eyes. “You alright kid?” He called, meandering over the top of the hill.

 

“Never better! Now, how about you dig me out? Kinda' stuck here.”

 

...

 

They made it to Megaton around three o' clock in the afternoon. Spoon explained that Megaton was his sort-of home base. The sheriff of the town had given him a house when he deactivated the bomb in the center of the complex (Spoon said it so casually Charon had to ask him to repeat himself because _really, a fucking bomb in the_ _ **middle**_ _of the_ _town?!_ ), and this was where he always came when he needed a little time off.

 

“Only for a few days, so I can heal.” Spoon murmured, his voice thick with exhaustion, almost like he was drunk. “And then I'll give you that adventure I promised, alright?”

 

Charon nodded absently, taking in the sights of the odd little town. Residents looked at him with fear or barely-concealed disgust. He heard several mutters of ' _fucking shuffler_ ' as he strode along behind Spoon. Charon growled low in his throat and was surprised to see Spoon flip off the general vicinity of where the mutters came from.

 

“He's a human being, just like all of you. It ain't his fault he's got balls made out of lead and he survived the radiation.” Spoon grunted. “Eat shit.” Charon resisted the urge to grin in surprise, maintaining a bored expression as they climbed the sheer steps to Spoon's abode. Spoon unlocked the door and hollered, “Wadsworth! I have a guest, don't shoot!”

 

“Certainly madam! May I suggest you get medical attention as soon as possible? Scans indicate you are injured.” Said the armed-to-the-proverbial-teeth robot, hovering in what Charon assumed was the living room-kitchen.

 

Spoon waved it off, telling Charon to follow him upstairs. “You can have the spare room, Charon. This house is too big for me anyway.”

 

“Why'd the robot say 'madam'?” Charon asked, confused.

 

Spoon paused, hand pointing to where Charon assumed the spare room was. “His wiring is a little...screwy,” The smaller man said slowly. “He was Moira's before he was mine, and she's as loony as they come. He won't admit it though! No matter what I do, the ol' bucket of bolts won't let me fix him. He's more stubborn than a thirsty Bramin an' half as useful.” Spoon finished with a grin.

 

Charon caught his own smile before it could form yet again as he listened to the robot sputter indignantly about how _my_ _protocol is_ _ **flawless**_ and _it's not_ _ **my**_ _fault that Moira woman played with my innards, madam!_

 

Spoon hushed the robot. “It's okay Wads. You're still the best robot ever. I wouldn't trade you for all Moriarty's caps.” Then, he looked up at Charon. “You tired?”

 

Charon shook his head.

 

Spoon's grin was something the ghoul was going to have to get used to. The scavenger's teeth were crooked, and one of them was chipped. But the way that it lit up his whole face seemed to compensate for it. “Let's head down to Moriarty's. There's someone who I think wants to see us.”

 

Charon raised an eyebrow. _Us?_

 

...

 

Gob looked up from wiping out one of the shot glasses at the sound of the door opening. “ _Spoon!_ ” The cry was gleeful as he ran around the bar and caught his friend in a massive bear-hug. Spoon grunted, patting Gob on the back as best as he could.

 

“Heya' Gob, how are you? Where's Nova?” He choked out. Gob released Spoon as (presumably) Nova sauntered up beside him.

 

“Hi handsome. How was the trip?” The woman purred, her hand sliding over Gob's arm in a friendly gesture.

 

Spoon smiled. “I missed the hell out of you guys! And look, I brought a friend back with me.” He said, gesturing upwards towards Charon.

 

Gob hadn't even noticed the ghoul filling the doorway, so intent was he on Spoon. Charon watched bemusedly while whatever color that had been left in Gob's face rapidly drained out. The smaller ghoul took a wary step back. “Ch-Charon.” Gob gulped. Charon inclined his head. “Uh, h-how's Ahzrukhal?”

 

“Dead.” Charon replied shortly. Gob's mouth formed an 'o' as he put two and two together, and he cautiously extended a hand. Charon shook it after a moment.

 

“Spoon'll take good care of you Charon. He ain't...he ain't like Ahzrukhal, or most smoothskins.” Gob whispered. “He's been real good to me. He's got Moriarty scared to hit me or Nova when he's around.” Charon abruptly noticed the discolored patches on Gob's face that had nothing to do with radiation, and a snarl fought in his throat. Gob, seeing the larger ghoul's look turn dark, hastily explained, “If he hits me, he doesn't hit Nova. And I can take a beating better than her. She loses caps if she's bruised up. Spoon wanted to buy me from Moriarty, but then that would leave Nova alone. I can't do that. Not to her.” The ghoul mumbled, seeming miserable.

 

Charon looked over to where Spoon was talking to Nova, the scavenger animatedly appearing to re-enact some of the journey to Underworld. Nova was smiling at the young man, her eyes sad as she listened to the wild tale he was telling. Charon snorted, looking back at Gob. “You need to get her out of here.” Charon growled. “You need to grow a fucking backbone, some balls, or both, and get _her_ out of here. Being trapped in a bar for eternity is the last fucking thing you want. Trust me.”

 

And with that, Charon went to go lean against the wall beside Spoon, his eyes scanning the bar for potential threats. He missed the look of resolve that skittered across Gob's face for a moment before the ghoul sighed and slunk back behind the bar.

 

“ _Well_ , if it ain't the sanctified Wasteland rat himself!” A thick Irish brogue interrupted Spoon's excited story and the scavenger's face hardened as he turned towards the owner of the voice.

 

“Moriarty.” Spoon acknowledged him quietly.

 

“Talkin' to the whore's gonna' cost you, boy.” Moriarty said, a smirk ruining his features thoroughly.

 

Spoon scoffed, “Talking to _you_ is what's costing me, you old bastard.” He reached a hand into his coat.

 

Moriarty's eyes narrowed, and the man's hand went to the gun at his side. “No tricks now, _rat_. Otherwise I'll have to sic Jericho on you again.”

 

Charon snarled at him, pleased when the bar owner jerked at the sound. Spoon was unconcerned, however, having merely been grabbing a few caps out of his pocket to flick at Moriarty's face. “You know as well as I do that your old raider buddy scares me about as much as a box of Sugar Bombs, _Morty_. Although I am liking the new setup you've got here, what with me paying to talk to the lady.” Spoon grinned in a rather nasty manner, showing all of his teeth. “I did always say I got pleasure out of hearing her voice.”

 

Moriarty was a tad flustered at that, but Charon noticed he wasn't above picking up the caps before he gritted out, “You have five minutes. Then, you and yer _shuffler_ had best get the hell out of my bar,” and stormed off.

 

The tall ghoul watched as Moriarty paused next to a grungy-looking man for a few moments, and then the Irishman snapped at Gob for being a ' _lazy no-good shiftless rotface_ '. Charon's blood boiled at that. He understood that the insult had been meant for him. _Good-for-nothing smoothskin_ , he grumbled inwardly, watching as Gob's face fell and the ghoul began to wipe down the bar counter.

 

“Thanks sweetheart. You know you didn't have to do that though, right?” Nova murmured, twining her fingers in Spoon's and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

 

“No worries.” Spoon replied, flushing a little bit at the kiss. “Once Moriarty hits the hay, tell Gob that Carol loves him very much, and is glad to hear that he's safe.” He jerked his head towards the door. “I think me and Charon should probably head to The Brass Lantern for the rest of our evening. If shit happens though, just stick your head out the door and holler. I know you can.” He winked.

 

Nova laughed at that. “Sugar, you're the _only_ one I'll ever holler for. When will you take me up on my offer?”

 

“I can't. It isn't fair to Gob.” Spoon protested as Nova's hands began to wander. “Hey, no c'mon, listen to me. It isn't right.” Spoon caught both of Nova's wrists, pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. “He's been here so long, and he takes a lot of Moriarty's shit so you don't have to. I know you want to bang the shit out of him. Y'all are gonna' have to get creative. After all, I can't solve _all_ your problems.” He chuckled.

 

Nova nodded, looking almost embarrassed. “Sorry sweetheart, I got a little carried away. Moriarty's been refusing me to everyone but Jericho and it's startin' to grate on my nerves.”

 

Charon was surprised at the growl that Spoon let escape, the scavenger gritting out, “I _hate_ that prick. Was he rough with you?”

 

“Nowhere near rough enough sugar.” Nova quipped, stepping away lightly. Spoon grumbled something to himself as she returned to her corner, turning on his heel and stomping to the door.

 

“C'mon Charon, we're outta' this joint. It sucks that my only friends work in this radroach-infested shit hole.” He said angrily, waiting until Charon was through the door to slam it shut. “That _skeevy_ motherfucker.” Spoon seethed, jamming his hands into his pockets as he walked.

 

“You care too much, Spoon.” Charon observed, unprepared for how quickly Spoon turned around.

 

“I _know_ , but shit like that pisses me right the fuck off. It pissed me off with _you_ , it pisses me off with _them_. At least you I could help. Sort of. A little bit. Am I helping?” Spoon's anger seemed to deflate, the question hanging in the air between them. Charon wasn't sure if it was rhetorical. “Or...or am I just making it worse for you when someone like Moriarty or Ahzrukhal gets hold of your contract again? Am I making their lives a royal fucking mess by pissing Moriarty off? I don't _know_. But...But I can't just sit on my hands while you lurk in a goddamn corner day in and day out, and I can't stand people like fucking Moriarty having control over _anyone_.” Spoon growled.

 

Charon held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You have your reasons.” Was all he said while Spoon jerked open the door of The Brass Lantern.

 

...

 

“Welcome home madam! I take it your evening went well?”

 

“Fuckin' peachy, you whirring-servo scrap pile.” Spoon said cheerily, hanging his long duster coat on a peg by the door. “I'm expectin' a visit from Jericho though, so you should probably barricade yourself in my room, Wads.”

 

“Ugh, that revolting man. I assure you, if I had a stomach, I would vomit.” The robot hurriedly floated up the stairs to Spoon's room, and the shifting of furniture was heard.

 

Spoon winked at Charon, taking off his bandanna and settling it next to the duster. “He's a good butler, but a _ferocious_ coward. Take a seat. This could be a long night.”

 

Charon lowered himself into a sufficiently battered-looking armchair, holding his shotgun across his knees. “You expect an attack?” The ghoul queried.

 

Spoon nodded, face devoid of mirth as he sat in a chair opposite Charon. “You'd think he's stop bein' so predictable. But he's never been bright.” He murmured, sighting down the barrel of his hunting rifle and ' _tsk_ 'ing quietly. “Hopefully if I douse all the lights, he'll think I've headed to bed early and he'll bust in here.”

 

“You cannot make the first move?” Charon asked incredulously.

 

Spoon shook his head. “Nah. They're a-okay with self defense, but as soon as you start instigating it's your own problem.”

 

Charon sighed, placing his shotgun on the floor and standing. He flexed his arms out in a wide, languid stretch, rotated his neck, and then cracked his knuckles. “Alright.”

 


	3. Switch-Hungry-Adventure-Capture

It took a little over an hour. Charon was disappointed in Jericho's lack of patience. From the sound of it, the man had broken six bobby pins trying to get through the front door. And when the door finally creaked open Jericho found himself face-to-face with seven feet of glowering ghoul, the barrel of a shotgun pressed to his chest.

 

“Shit.” He rasped out, dropping the knife that had been in his hand.

 

“Well, you are what you eat.” Spoon said as he meandered around Charon to speak to Jericho. “I don't believe I've introduced you two. Jericho, meet my partner, Charon. Charon, Jericho.”

 

Charon had to fight a smile at the word. _Partner_. _Not 'employee', not 'slave'. Partner. Equal._

 

“I was just comin' over to talk--” Jericho began.

 

“Yeah, I usually bring my knife to a talk too. You and I must share a brain, Jericho.” Spoon said seriously. “Nah, we know why you're here. And I don't really give a flying fuck. You've got three seconds to get the fuck off my property before I skin you. And this time, it _won't_ just be a warning patch off your elbow.” Jericho paled as Charon jabbed the shotgun in his chest, forcing him to stumble back a step. “One.” Spoon started to count.

 

The ex-raider ducked under Charon's gun and lunged for Spoon, sweeping his knife off the floor in a single fluid motion. “ _You bastard!_ ”

 

* * *

 

Spoon raised her rifle, but she was unprepared. She hadn't expected that Jericho would _actually_ snap this time. She saw the knife arc through the air towards her, knowing that at best she might be able to turn herself enough to land it in her shoulder or arm instead of her chest.

 

She underestimated Jericho, but it appeared she had also underestimated the ghoul's reflexes.

 

Charon turned in sync with Jericho's motions, dropped to one knee and slammed his elbow into Jericho's collarbone. The force of the blow knocked Jericho on his ass, the ex-raider making a small choking sound.

 

Spoon staggered a little bit, almost dropping her rifle in surprise. _He's fast!_

 

“Are you alright? Look at me. _Look at me._ ” Charon caught her arm, looking her over worriedly. He sighed, seeming relieved. “Good.”

 

“W... _Wow_.” Spoon managed to say finally.

 

Charon paused midway through kicking Jericho out the door. “What?” He asked, his brow furrowed.

 

“You're fast as fuck!” Spoon blurted out.

 

The corner of Charon's mouth twitched upwards for a second. “It isn't _that_ difficult to be quicker than an old sack of skin like _him_.” He grumbled dismissively, finishing his quest to get Jericho out of the house and closing the door. “Do you want me to kill him?”

 

“No, no! Just...uh. Just leave him out there. He'll come to in a little bit then probably limp to Doc Church to whine.” Spoon grinned, feeling almost giddy. “You're gonna' _have_ to teach me that move!”

 

Charon inclined his head. “If you wish to learn it, I will teach you.”

 

“Did he hurt _you_ at all?” Spoon asked as Charon made a show of dusting himself off.

 

“No, I'm alright.” The ghoul flexed again, making Spoon's mouth go dry. “I'm usually faster though. Apologies. I'm out of practice.”

 

“No, no! You were great. It's not your fault you've been stuck in a corner for a decade.” Spoon assured him, blushing a little.

 

Charon cleared his throat, straightening out the belts on his armor. “Try a century.” He seemed pleased at the praise though, rubbing the back of his neck. Spoon sat back down in her chair, her adrenaline-shaky limbs betraying her. She pretended to be looking over her rifle while Charon shifted from foot to foot.“Did...did you mean what you said earlier?” The ghoul finally asked quietly. Spoon looked up at him, slightly confused. He hesitated, then continued, “I mean...when you said I was your partner. Did you mean that or was that just to fuck with him?”

 

Spoon's heart ached. _How many people have done this to him?_

 

Charon, appearing to take her silence for disapproval, began to back away warily. “I'm sorry, I know it's not my place to question anything-”

 

“No, nothing like that. You just caught me off guard.” Spoon smiled kindly up at the ghoul. “Of course you're my partner, big guy. I've barely traveled with you for a day and I'm already grateful for your presence. Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

_He is...grateful for me? He is happy I am around?_ Charon fidgeted in the armchair, thoughts tumbling around in his brain. He had volunteered to stay downstairs and guard against attack while Spoon slept. The young man had told him it wouldn't be necessary, but Charon insisted so he finally caved. And now Charon was alone, with his overly-hopeful imagination.

 

_What a day this has been,_ he mused, eyes on the door. His shotgun rested across his knees, an old, drum magazine-fed friend in his arms. _Yesterday morning I was nothing but a piece of furniture, a weapon. A useful weapon, but a weapon nonetheless. And now_ ...His brow furrowed. _I am needed. I am helpful. I am...appreciated. And I have not been ordered to be so. I have worked of my own volition. I have done nothing that I did not want to do. How confusing._ Charon sighed, settling down farther into the chair and rubbing his eyes. _I'll close them for just a minute. I didn't sleep at all yesterday because of how excited I was. Just a minute won't hurt..._

 

* * *

 

Spoon crept down the stairs in the wan light of morning, fully dressed with her hat already in place. She assumed Jericho hadn't returned. She hadn't been awoken by anything, anyway. Her eyes landed on Charon in his chair, shotgun over his knees, and she paused for a second. _God, he's even big when he's sitting,_ she marveled, tiptoeing past his slumbering form to the kitchen, where she quietly began to make breakfast.

 

_He must have been exhausted. I imagine protecting Ahzrukhal from threats was a twenty-four-seven job_ , she mused, tearing open a box of Dandy Boy apples and dropping the shriveled-up fruit slices into a skillet, where they began to sizzle quietly. A can of Cram was next, chunks of the neon-pink meat finding their way in between the dried apples to begin to brown. Spoon tossed the ingredients around in the pan, stirring them with a ruined fork.

 

She grabbed two plates from the shelf next to the battered hotplate once she was satisfied with the golden-orange shade the Cram had taken on, and she began to scoop her improvised stir-fry breakfast carefully out of the pan. _Can't waste any. A big guy like him must eat a lot_ , she reasoned with a nod. Spoon glanced over, pleased to see that Charon was still sound asleep. Her eyes softened. _God, I hope we get along okay._

 

She balanced one plate in the crook of her elbow and the other in her hand as she went to go wake Charon. Knowing how jumpy people could be if awoken roughly in a strange environment, she put a hand on his arm and squeezed, quietly saying, “Charon. Breakfast?”

 

His eyes flew open and he bolted upright, knife drawn and pressed against her throat before she had time to even _think_. Spoon gulped, steadying her plates while Charon narrowed those milky-blue eyes searchingly at her.

 

Five of the longest seconds in the history of mankind passed.

 

“How long was I asleep for?” The ghoul finally growled.

 

Spoon puffed out her cheeks, squinting while she thought. Very much aware of the cold metal nestling under her chin. “I'd say maybe two...three hours? Maybe?” She replied weakly. “I don't really know for sure, I slept through the night.”

 

Charon snorted, lowering his knife. “Well I imagine if you were going to punish me for my lax watchkeeping, you wouldn't have woken me up with breakfast. I assume that's what you're doing?” He queried, eyebrow raised. Spoon nodded, slightly relieved when Charon accepted the proffered plate with a murmur of thanks.

 

She perched on the arm of the armchair as he sat back down, curious. “Why would I punish you for being tired? Megaton's a safe enough place, and I told you, you didn't _have_ to keep watch.”

 

“I have been punished for more minor things.” Charon said shortly.

 

Spoon ' _ohh_ 'ed quietly, watching as Charon began to display a voracious appetite. “Whoa, slow down there cowboy. Don't choke. When was the last time you had a real meal?” She asked, wondering if Ahzrukhal had kept him hungry to make him more irritable. Like a dog.

 

Charon shrugged. “Ahzrukhal was not in the habit of feeding me. Sometimes Carol was able to intercept me on my way back from leaving Patchwork with Barrows to give me a little something, but mostly I survived on scraps from the day's leftovers.” His eyes looked distant. “Barrows would give me water when he could. Ahzrukhal had apparently been told, upon his acquiring of my contract, that I didn't need to fucking _eat_.” Charon stared down at his plate, “I was a very good bodyguard, despite the hunger.” Spoon frowned, beginning to shift some of her breakfast onto Charon's plate. Charon's head snapped up. “What are y-?”

 

“No, shut up. You can't tell me that kind of shit and expect me not to be sympathetic.” Spoon grumbled, doing her damnedest to hide the tremor in her voice. “You can eat as much as you can hold. And from now on, if you're hungry or thirsty or tired, please tell me?”

 

“Is that an order?” Charon asked, seeming to question more out of confusion than rebellion.

 

Spoon shook her head. “It's a request. One that you can ignore, even. If you want to. It's just that...well, if you're gonna' be my partner, you need to tell me when you're half-dead so I don't have to carry your ass out of someplace.” She said with a rueful grin. “I imagine you understand partners work better together if they know each others strengths and weaknesses. Like you know how I get _very_ lost underground. And I know you get appropriately hungry for your size.”

 

Charon opened his mouth, then closed it. “I...thank you.” He mumbled, rubbing his face tiredly and then settling in to his second helping. Spoon smiled when he wasn't looking, finishing her breakfast and going to put her plate in the washbasin. _You're welcome_.

 

* * *

 

A few weeks passed, the two falling into an easy routine of venturing out every day to scavenge and wipe out pockets of raiders. Charon relished the combat, and Spoon enjoyed finding new places to loot.

 

The day had been going fairly normal. Charon and Spoon had set out to eradicate a raider camp located on an overpass near Vault 101. Charon _had_ noticed the oddly-wide berth Spoon took around the vault, but he figured it was just a precaution. God only knows what lived in that spawnhole. Couldn't be anything human.

 

They had been walking along minding their own business (Spoon's nose to the ground, looking for good salvage as always) when a concealed raider scout felt the need to lob a projectile at the duo with a howl of, “ _Rotfaaaaace!_ ”

 

“Watch it!” Spoon yelled, whipping his rifle up and firing off a shot as something ' _thunk_ 'ed against Charon's armor. Charon looked down, brow furrowed. _Grenade!_ Hastily the ghoul kicked it away, thanking God that it was a home-brewed one as he saw it take a chunk out of the dirt and rock after a momentary sputter. Bullets began to pepper the dust around the partners, forcing them to zigzag in an effort to confuse the raiders that fell upon them.

 

In the midst of all the chaos, Charon lost sight of Spoon. But as he whirled, pumping raiders full of shotgun blasts and bellowing swears, a high scream of pain cut through the haze of battle. Charon's eyes widened. _Spoon!_ The ghoul slammed the butt of his shotgun into a raider's skull, yelling for his partner. “ _Spoon!_ Where are you?”

 

* * *

 

“ _Charon!_ ”

 

She was crying already, eyes blurred with tears as she held her shoulder. A well-placed bullet had torn clean through it, leaving her to wield her trusty rifle clumsily at best. She struggled out of her pack and shifted the gun to her left hand, gritting her teeth as she braced it against her side and fired it point blank into a raider's face.

 

“Take that, ya' bastard!” She yelled. Hope surged through her as she managed to pick off a few more raiders in her current condition. _I might be okay here-_

 

A fist connected with the side of her head, and even as her consciousness ebbed away she swore at herself for not seeing the enemy sneak up on her. _Sloppy_ ... _James would have been disappointed..._

 

* * *

 

Charon's heart leaped into his throat as he saw a small figure drop hard to a blow to the head. “Spoon!” He shouted. In his moment of distraction, a gun rammed into the small of his back, staggering the ghoul. Another barrel pressed against his neck, and still another dug into his ribs. Charon grunted as he was forced to his knees.

 

The raider leader looked somewhat...non-threatening. His sparse hair had been greased up into what once resembled a mohawk, and his pistol seemed to be in desperate need of repair. _Not slavers, then. Maybe working under a slaver faction?_ Charon wondered as he was scrutinized like a piece of meat.

 

“Fuck it. Take 'im and the tiny one. We ain't seen nothin' for weeks now. If anythin' we can sell him off. He's a huge fucker.” The leader slurred finally. “You pull anythin', zombie, and I'll blow that precious boy's brains clear out, y' get me?” He addressed Charon, who had showed his teeth in a snarl when the word _zombie_ left his mouth. “Ooo, he's feisty. Harold, pick up the ol' shuffler's gun. It's a nice piece, if a li'l outdated.”

 

Charon's hands were chained tight and secure behind his back, amidst numerous flurries of punches and kicks from the raiders. Through it all, Spoon remained slung over one of the raider's shoulders, face pale and dirty. _Is he dead? Please...please don't be dead. Please. Don't let them get my contract. Please don't be dead._ Charon begged mentally while the raiders marched them into a cavern under the overpass.

 

The cave was _filthy_ , a few bloody mattresses huddled inside the entrance before it branched off into several tunnels. A fire that seemed to provide more smoke than light poorly illuminated the far wall. Charon tripped over a raider's outstretched boot, landing on one of the mattresses with a muffled curse between the snorts of raider laughter. Spoon's body was tossed carelessly down with him after the raiders had tied the young man's hands together behind him. Three raiders took up sentry duty for the evening, standing outside the entrance and scouring the horizon for potential threats.

 

_This is not good_. Charon shifted himself into an upright position, carefully hooking his boot through the crook of Spoon's elbow to drag the unconscious man closer to him. The raider leader and Harold had headed into the tunnels, leaving just one inebriated member who only appeared to have one ear to tend the fire, plus the three outside. With a grunt, Charon slid Spoon to a point where he could get the younger man across his knees. Then, he hauled his knees up, effectively landing Spoon in his lap.

 

Charon bent close, realizing with a shock that this was the first time he had seen Spoon without his customary hat. And also that Spoon's hair was much longer than he had thought previously. The young man apparently kept it bobby-pinned tightly to his skull, and then tucked it under his hat. Those bobby pins gave Charon an idea as Spoon's eyes fluttered open. “Shh.” The ghoul said quietly, noting the panicked look on Spoon's face. “We're going to be okay. But I need your help.”

 

“M' shoulder hurts.” Spoon groaned, a few belated tears tracking through the dirt on his cheeks.

 

Charon sighed. “I know, but listen to me, alright?” Spoon nodded, grimacing. “I need you to lay down with your head between my back and the wall, facing the wall. Can you do that?” Another nod. “Okay. Easy now. We don't want to disturb Ears over there.” Charon whispered, pushing up with one of his knees to get Spoon in an upright position. Spoon then gingerly lowered his head down between Charon's back and the wall.

 

Once his head was on the floor, Charon got to work.

 


	4. Pinned-Bluffing-Transit-Touch

Her face was towards the wall. She had followed his instructions, dumb as they seemed, to the letter. Through the hot ache of pain in her shoulder, she was surprised to feel rough-skinned fingers brush hesitantly against her hair. “I'm going to try and be gentle.” Charon's raspy murmur sounded so loud to her hypersensitive ears. Those fingers came again, this time digging through her hair with a purpose. Spoon bit her lip, forcing down a yelp of pain as he jerked a bobby pin free. There were a few metallic scraping sounds that seemed to echo over the crackling of the fire in the corner.

 

_He's picking the locks! We're going to escape!_ Spoon realized excitedly. The next time his hands touched her hair, she eagerly pressed against them, hoping that she was helping. Charon's body stiffened momentarily but his fingers sought out another pin, and pulled it free. And after that one broke, another took its place. And another, and another.

 

The sky was completely dark outside when the sound of footsteps alerted Spoon that someone was coming. She went limp behind Charon, the ghoul flexing his hands in a fidgety manner as the person entered the room.

 

“Take the runt. We'll see how well he holds up.”

 

Spoon's blood ran cold as someone grabbed her arm and crouched, pulling her boneless self up onto their back. She felt her hair fall over her face, _much_ longer than she remembered it being. She heard some scrabbling, but didn't dare open her eyes to see what was happening. Charon's voice grated in the quiet of the cave. “Don't take him! He's...he's crazy! He'll kill you all if he wakes up!”

 

“' _He_ ', huh?” Someone sneered. Greedy fingers pushed her hair aside and tilted her head. Spoon's cheeks burned with shame as she imagined the look on Charon's face once he realized the truth.

 

Disappointment. Anger. _I lied to him_.

 

“' _He_ ' sure has some soft skin. Almost like a _woman._ And this hair-!” There was a harsh inhale. Spoon barely kept from flinching, doing her best to play possum. “I know a few folks that would pay a pretty penny for this little lady.”

 

“No!” Charon shouted, sounding _wrong_ , almost desperate.

 

The raider snickered. “What's the matter, shuffler? Is she your _fuckbuddy_?”

 

Whoever had been carrying Spoon dropped her suddenly. The young woman bit her tongue as she hit the ground, cringing from the pain in her shoulder. “I ain't touchin' no shuffler-fucker.” Another voice said nervously. There was a dull _smack_ , and a howl of pain.

 

“We need to make sure the little lady's in working order, got it Harold? Now, strip 'er.”

 

* * *

 

“I can assure you _gentlemen_ that she's fully fucking operational. But ever since she fucked me she's been hooked. She's gonna' want nothing to do with _your_ tiny dicks.” Charon snarled. He was rewarded with a punch in the mouth by one of the more courageous raiders. He shook his head, tasting blood even as he spat, “She ain't gonna' be interested, and she sure as fuck ain't gonna' be excited.”

 

_Spoon is a girl. Spoon is a **woman**. And if I don't do something-_

 

Charon blanched, fighting back the images that rushed to his head.  _I can't let that happen. Not again. Not to anyone._ The words came faster, spilling out when Spoon began to thrash. Harold was busily undoing her belt. “I mean it! This girl can't get enough of me! She's so used to me, she's not even gonna'  _look_ at you,” Charon continued, carrying on his work with the bobby pin and lock behind his back, “Because my dick is the only thing that gets her off.”

 

“Izzat right?” Harold paused in the middle of pulling Spoon's pants around her ankles, his hungry expression fading to genuine curiosity. He paid for his lack of care when Spoon headbutted him violently.

 

Even Ears and the leader looked interested. “And _why_ is that, shuffler?” Ears asked.

 

Charon grinned inwardly, having finally gotten their attention. And this pin would do it, he was sure. But he had to keep it quiet. No sense in them knowing he was free and putting a bullet in his skull. Spoon made an infuriated sound, attempting to crawl away. But Harold wrapped an arm around her knees, seeming immune to the kicks she aimed at his ribs.

 

Charon's face tightened at how... _familiar_ Harold was being with his partner. But he choked it down, forcing himself to focus on somehow, _somehow_ fabricating a legitimate reason why Spoon would prefer his...well, his whole existence to others. He was still in process of wrapping his head around the fact that Spoon was a _woman_ , and now he had to not only remember she was a woman, but pretend that they had been intimate long enough for her to develop a preference for him. He cast wildly around his brain for an idea, overly-aware of the starved looks the raiders aimed at Spoon. _What...what--!_

 

“It's all...all in the skin.” He said finally, steeling himself against a cringe as Spoon snapped her teeth and growled angrily at Harold. The raider had started tugging Spoon's underwear down, scraping his dirty fingernails greedily over her thighs. Charon looked away quickly. “Because of how rough the skin is on my, uh...” He wanted to die a little bit, this was _ridiculous_ but he could hardly argue with a strategy to buy more time. He would worry about his awkward embarrassment _later_. “On my _massive fucking dick_ , she can't get enough of me.” The words came out as a startlingly aggressive statement, Charon not even daring to glance up at his partner while he spoke for fear that she might think he was serious. The last thing he wanted was to get them free and then be handed his contract for making her feel unsafe.

 

Spoon kneed Harold in the stomach and rolled to her feet, almost tripping on her pants when she scuffed up a little dirt to kick in Harold's face. The raider laughed, the mirthless sound sending a chill down Charon's spine.

 

The bobby pin finally clicked, dropping the lock to the ground and loosing the ghoul.

 

Charon lunged forwards with a furious roar of, “ _Don't you fucking touch her again!_ ” His hands wrapped around Harold's neck and he slammed him into the ground with nothing but his momentum and the iron of his grip. Years of tactical prowess on full display, Charon relished the look of terror on the raider's face before tearing the combat knife from his boot and slitting the man's throat.

 

He then whirled on the leader, snarling loudly and lashing out with the knife to force the man backwards. Spoon kicked out at the back of the leader's knees, toppling him. His head cracked into the cave wall _hard_ and he tumbled over her, lifeless.

 

Charon glared at Ears, making no move to sheathe his knife even while he stared down the barrel of his own gun. “Give me my _fucking_ gun.” Ears' hands shook with his hold on the weapon and then he hastily tossed the combat shotgun to the ghoul, who quickly repaid his kindness by blowing his face to a shattered pulp at point-blank range.

 

Charon shot a quick look outside, nodding in satisfaction. The sentries had hightailed it out of the area. _Raiders, while known for their savagery, are largely cowards and tend to flee at the first sign of trouble._ His eyes widened. _Shit. Spoon._ He bolted to the young woman. “Spoon?” He asked cautiously, tugging her into an upright position. She sagged against him, her chest heaving. “Spoon. Hey.” Charon sighed, reaching for his knife again. He started sawing through the ropes around her wrists, half-listening to her shuddering breathing. He didn't want her to hyperventilate, not after everything else.

 

“M' so sorry.” The whisper caught Charon completely off-guard as the ropes snapped, and she began to struggle to hoist her pants back up. She cinched her belt tight without meeting his eyes, wiping her nose and sniffling quietly.

 

“Smoothskin, I...I hate to break it to you, but _I'm_ the one that's supposed to be sorry right now. I failed you. I'm here to protect you.” Charon bowed his head, accepting his fate. “You may fire me, or punish me if that is your wish. It is what I deserve for allowing this to happen.”

 

“N-no-!” Spoon choked out. “I'm j-just...I'm sorry I wasn't much help.”

 

“'Much help'? Spoon...” Charon grumbled, a little relieved _that_ was what she was upset about. “You were _far_ from useless. You kept your cool until I could get free. You helped _amazingly_ by having those pins in your hair in the first place. You didn't stop fighting back, even with a fucking _hole_ in your shoulder. You're a goddamn champ.”

 

“I didn't want them to get your contract.” Spoon said in a small voice, looking up through her mess of brown hair at Charon.

 

“And they didn't. You've done good, kid.” Charon said, ruffling that hair and then standing. “C'mon smoothskin, let's get you home.”

 

But Spoon continued to sit even when Charon offered her a hand up. Charon was momentarily confused until she said quietly, “You need to give me a minute. My knees feel like jello.”

 

“Oh.” Charon sat back down beside her, more than a little surprised when she burrowed into his side. Spoon coughed softly. “Hey, I...” Charon's hand hovered awkwardly above her back for a moment before he carefully laid it flat over her shoulder blade. His hand moved of its own volition, rubbing small circles on Spoon's shaking back. Charon cleared his throat after several minutes had passed. “How about I carry you? We'll head back to Megaton and grab your rifle along the way.” Spoon nodded into his side. Charon's eyes softened. _Poor little scrapper._ “Alright, climb up. You're gonna' be fine.”

 

* * *

 

_Useless._

 

Spoon crushed her eyes shut, clinging tighter to Charon's back. Pain flared wearily in her shoulder. She could only imagine how Charon must feel, carrying her, her rifle, his shotgun,  _and_ her pack. Stupid her, not putting any goddamn  _Stims_ in the pack. Cocky, sloppy, useless little Spoon.

 

_I didn't think we'd get fucking 'napped, okay? I know I need to be prepared for every happenstance, but fuck, how was I going to know we'd get bagged?_ Spoon reasoned, feeling Charon tense up under her. The ghoul raised his shotgun and took out a mole rat, the blast ringing in Spoon's ears. Charon grunted, seeming content with his handiwork.  _He's so brave. He kept pulling their attention back to himself so they wouldn't..._ Spoon shuddered. A blush stained her cheeks as she thought back to what Charon had said.

 

“ _I can assure you_ _ **gentlemen**_ _that she's fully fucking operational...she's gonna' want nothing to do with_ _ **your**_ _tiny dicks._ ”

 

Spoon hid her face in the collar of Charon's jacket, thoroughly embarrassed. “You alright back there, miss?” Charon rasped.

 

Spoon nodded, her cheek accidentally rubbing the back of Charon's neck. “I'm sorry I lied to you about being a man.”

 

“I don't recall your gender ever coming up in conversation, Spoon.” Charon paused, then continued, “However, we should probably discuss it once you're taken care of. Now is not the time.”

 

The woman could have cried from relief when she heard Deputy Weld's halting greeting, and she told Charon to put her down. “They're already suspicious enough of you. I don't want anyone shooting you because they think you killed me or something.” She mumbled around the hat brim in her mouth, braiding her hair and then tucking it up under the hat. She winced as the motion pulled her shoulder.

 

“Fine. I will carry your pack.” Charon said, acting like he was stating a fact. Spoon grumbled, but allowed him to keep carrying it as they climbed over the water pipes and up the makeshift stairs to her house.

 

“Welcome home, madam!” Wadsworth chirped from the kitchen after she opened the door.

 

“Wads, I need a Nuka-Cola. No, make it two. And...And some whiskey. Two cups.” Spoon ordered, shooing the robot towards the fridge. “Bring 'em upstairs.”

 

“Certainly madam!”

 

“You can drop the pack by the door.” She said to Charon, who obliged, setting the raggedy knapsack on the floor. “I'm gonna' need your help with my shoulder. I'm good, but I ain't _that_ good. And poor Doc Church needs to be left alone at this hour.”

 

“As you wish.”

 

* * *

 

_She wants me to touch her? To dress her wounds? Me?_ Charon shook his head as he followed Spoon up the stairs.  _This can't be right. It was acceptable when I didn't know she was a woman. Men often care for each others injuries. Very rarely is there anything romantic, simply camaraderie. Women...if you care for a woman's wounds, it means you care for the woman herself. You cherish her enough to not want her to hurt. If a woman asks you to help dress her wounds, she trusts you. She lets her guard down around you. And **you** cannot simply be rough and necessary. You have to be gentle, and careful, and_ \--

 

“Hey!” Spoon waved her fingers in his face, startling him. “You alright? Did they hit you on the head or something?”

 

“No, sorry. Lost in thought.” Charon mumbled.

 

Spoon nodded. “Okay. If you're sure you're alright.”

 

“I'm fine.” Spoon tossed her hat and bandanna on a rickety chair, starting to struggle out of her long duster coat. Charon silently grabbed a sleeve, and tugged until she was able to get her injured arm out safely. He draped the coat over the chair with the rest of her gear, briefly examining the hole in the jacket. _At least it didn't lodge in her shoulder._

 

Charon's mouth went dry when he turned around, and he swallowed hard before he could stop himself. Spoon had stripped off her loose shirt, leaving nothing but a sleeveless undershirt on. Bandages wrapped around her chest under the shirt. Charon's brow furrowed. “What is that from?” He asked, pointing to the bandages. “You cannot still be suffering due to the Talon Merc's bullets from when you acquired my contract, and I don't recall you sustaining any other chest or rib related injuries while I have been in your service.”

 

“I-It's not an injury.” Spoon's blush was almost tangible.

 

Charon choked on a breath as his mind shrieked  _breasts, you dumb sack of shit!_ “Oh. Uh. M-My apologies.” He stammered. Spoon started to giggle, and Charon's nervousness dissipated into indignant embarrassment as she doubled over in a fit of laughter. “What's so goddamn funny?” He growled. 

 

“Your face--!” She snorted.

 

Charon rubbed the back of his neck. “Well fucking  _sue_ me. A few hours ago you were a man. Now, not only are you  _not_ a man, I've got to come to grips with the fact that you fought alongside me. I haven't given a flying fuck about how damn careful I need to be.”

 

Spoon's laughter petered out, her look growing suspicious. “What is  _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

“Well, I mean...like what happened today.” Charon hastily explained. “I have...a female employer is different from having a male employer. If a male employer is in a precarious situation, I usually don't have to distract his antagonists from _molesting_ him.”

 

“You were so smart when it came to that! I never would have thought to appeal to their baser instincts like you did. I'm _very_ impressed with your quick thinking.” Spoon's face had relaxed into an expression of genuine admiration.

 

Charon grimaced. “I'm sorry if I offended you in any way. It was purely an attempt to distract. I didn't mean to imply that we were anything more than partners. After how kind you've been to me, it would be a poor way to repay you.”

 

“Hey.” She put a hand on his arm. “It's okay. I'm glad you did it. I'm glad you were quick enough to do it. You're the best partner I've ever had, big guy.”

 

“You flatter me. We should be checking your shoulder.” Charon clenched his fist, surprised when her hand gave his tightened muscles an appreciative stroke. “Here, let me see. Where is that damned robot?”

 

“Right here, sir!” Said a cheery metallic voice.

 

Charon rolled his eyes. “'Sir', my ass.” He grumbled, taking the Nuka-Cola, whiskey and cups away from the robot. “Can you purify condensation? Does your model do that?” He asked. “Cerberus couldn't.”

 

“I am not sure what model this...'Cerberus' fellow is,” Wadsworth sniffed, “but I can assure you _I_ am the pinnacle of service--”

 

“Great. Quit jawing and purify some water rustbucket.” The ghoul interrupted.

 

“ _Please?_ ” Spoon tacked on at the end of Charon's order, elbowing him in the side.

 

“What?” Charon grunted, confused.

 

“Be nice. This bot is one of my only friends.” Spoon smiled at Wadsworth. “One of my best friends.”

 

The robot cleared its nonexistent throat, dropping a bottle into Spoon's hand. “If that is all madam and sir require, I shall take my leave.”

 

“Thanks, Wadsworth.”

 

After the door closed, Charon sighed. “Why the hell are you so adamant on being kind to things that don't require or...I guess _deserve_ kindness? Not that it's really my place to question. If you weren't I'd still be rotting in The Ninth Circle. But color me curious as fuck, Spoon.”

 

Spoon shrugged. “A lot of people in the world now don't understand kindness. I grew up in a place that, until the very end, seemed like a kind environment.” She winced as Charon started scrubbing at the crusted blood on her shoulder. “I thought everyone was happy with their lives. I thought the world worked differently.” Spoon shook her head.

 

“Where did you grow up?” Charon asked quietly, trying to keep her mind off what he was doing.

 

“Pretty close to here, actually. But it might as well be worlds away.” She said cryptically. “When I left though, the place had gone to shambles. People killing one another, acting like wild animals. It was a madhouse.”

 

Spoon flinched when Charon patted her shoulder dry. “Sorry.” The ghoul muttered, surprised that he actually meant it.

 

“It's okay. Just...not used to someone else patching my ass up.” Now there was a tremor in Spoon's voice. After a few moments, she continued, “I left with nothing but a BB gun, a baseball bat, and the suit on my back. I didn't know anything about...about how the world had changed. All I had been told was that the world was a dangerous place, and I was safer where I was.”

 

Charon made a noncommittal noise in his throat, swabbing the skin and then injecting a Stimpack above the wound. He chanced a glance at Spoon's face, noticing her eyes look suspiciously teary. “Am I being too rough?”

 

“No, no! I'm j-just thinkin' about leaving home.” She murmured, seeming distant. “My dad...uh, he left before I did. I never knew my mother. She died giving birth to me. Dad said I looked just like her. He'd tell me all these stories I thought were made up, about their adventures in the outside world. Ants the size of dogs; cities made out of boats or planes and people who had forgotten to put their skin on that morning.”

 

Charon chuckled. “Ghouls?”

 

Spoon nodded, seeming surprised at the laugh. “Yeah. I guess that was the kindest or most child-friendly way he could think to phrase it. He would show me pictures of the human musculature in his medical books, saying that was how it looked. He was a doctor, a scientist actually. So smart.” There was a bitter edge to her tone. “Too smart to let me slow him down.”

 

“He left you behind?” Charon asked, instantly regretting the words as he watched Spoon's jaw tense.

 

“I don't think that was his intent. But-” She paused when Charon began wrapping a bandage under and over her shoulder, “That's what ended up happening. He left, and the whole place came down around my ears. I didn't know what to do. Everyone was hunting me because they thought I knew where my dad had gone. No one was ever supposed to leave and he just...” Her words trailed off as Charon secured the bandage carefully.

 

“Why was no one supposed to leave? Were you in a cult of some kind?” Charon already had an inkling about where she was from, but he figured he would keep his questions neutral.

 

“I suppose it sort of was a cult, now that I think about it.” Was all Spoon said in reply. She stood, struggling into her loose white shirt again. She was almost as white as the shirt, dark circles under her eyes telling of many sleepless nights.

 

“You uh, lost a lot of blood earlier. I don't think that the whiskey will help-” Charon began.

 

“Last time I checked, I didn't give a flying fuck about what you thought.” Spoon snapped as she poured whiskey and Nuka-Cola into one of the cups. Charon fell silent, wondering what he had done to deserve _that_. Spoon sighed, rubbing a hand over her face and handing him the full cup without turning to face him. “I'm sorry. That was rude as shit. I don't...I don't like to tell my story. It sort of stings a little bit more every time I tell it. That combined with today's other _fabulous_ events...I just kind of want to forget the feeling of somebody pawing at me, okay?”

 

“Do you wish me to leave you alone?” Charon asked stiffly, taking a careful sip out of the cup. It _was_ very good, icy-cold.

 

“No. I like--uh, that is, I appreciate the company when I'm in a shitty mood. Normally I'd have to suss out Moira or go talk to Gob and Nova. Ping a few more caps off Moriarty's fat fucking face.” Spoon half-smiled down into her own cup at that. “The way I am right now, I'd probably just start another fucking fight.”

 

“You tend to seek out conflict when you're conflicted?” Charon remarked dryly, “Quaint.” She shot him a glare that he pacified with a ragged grin. A little more _predatory_ than he would have liked, but he was out of practice smiling. “Kidding, Spoon. Only kidding.”

 

“So you _do_ have a sense of humor?” She observed, mocking his earlier tone.

 

Charon shrugged. “Despite what people seem to believe, I am in fact a human.”

 

She gasped. “Say it ain't so!”

 

“Alright if you're going to be a wiseass...” Charon pretended to start getting up, surprised when she put a hand on his arm. _Every goddamn time it surprises the shit out of me!_ he thought exasperatedly.

 

“You're goin' nowhere, ghoul. Not til' you down your cup like a man.” Spoon growled with a smirk.

 

“Is that a _challenge_ , smoothskin?” Charon snarled, “because if it is, you're shit outta' luck. I can out-drink, out-smoke, out-fuck, out-fight anyone in the goddamn Wastes. Lack of practice aside, I've hardly gone soft from being stuck in a low-lit dive for a century or two.” He tipped the cup back, emptying the contents and wiping his mouth.

 


	5. Sundance-Golden-Dismissal-Skirmish

Spoon had awoken that morning in a pleasant, alcohol-induced haze. She sat in her chair for what felt like hours, watching the way Charon's back shifted as he breathed. The ghoul had slept on the floor in front of her chair, his combat armor shucked to the side. Well, slept or passed out, she wasn't sure. The sun's weary rays peered through the sheets of metal on the walls, catching the dust motes and making them dance through the beams. She had made a small, contented purring sound, stretching and positioning herself more comfortably in her chair while she examined him. Even with his body slack in sleep she could see the strength he had.

 

Of course, she didn't really need to watch him while he was sleeping to know he was strong. He had certainly proved it to her during yesterday's events, if not before. Watching him now allowed her to appreciate him when he didn't have his guard up, let her see how calm he could look when he was relaxed. She wasn't sure _why_ that was important to her, just that it was.

 

_He must have been something else before he got ghoulified._ Spoon thought with a yawn, getting up and meandering around his large form. _Goddamn giant red-headed motherfucker. Bet he broke all the girls hearts_.

 

“Lucas owes me some caps for yesterday's fiasco.” Spoon explained as they headed down the steep steps a little later, her cheeks feeling unnaturally hot as she thought back on her lazy morning. “So we're gonna' visit him, and then I have to go to Craterside. I'm finally low on ammo.” Charon nodded, easily keeping up with her shorter strides. “Ah, here we are,” Spoon said with a hint of relief, her voice still rough from the Nuka-whiskey mix. “Simms, have I got a fucking story for you!” She grinned while she shook the sheriff's hand.

 

Simms' brow furrowed as he looked at Charon and gave the ghoul a tight nod. Charon returned the gesture after a moment. Simms didn't particularly _care_ for ghouls, but he also operated on the, 'Do Unto Others' policy, so he wasn't about to start trouble. And for that, Spoon was forever grateful. “What happened to you yesterday? Stockholm said you came home on the big bastard's back.” Simms said worriedly.

 

Charon gave an exasperated huff, and Spoon glanced up at him. The ghoul's eyes were somewhat pointedly aimed over Simms' head towards Stockholm's 'nest'. Spoon smiled uneasily. “He's exaggeratin'! If you calm your tits, I'll tell you what happened. Besides, you know how batty Stockholm can get.”

 

“Well alright then. Lay it on me.” Lucas said, lighting a cigarette and looking at Spoon expectantly.

 

“Ah, we cleared 'em out at any rate,” Spoon began lamely. Lucas raised an eyebrow and Charon made a sound that was _suspiciously_ close to a chuckle. “That is, there were what...maybe eight of them in their hole?” She continued, somewhat flustered.

 

“Nine.” Charon corrected quietly.

 

“Right, nine. Sorry. During the skirmish on the overpass they shot up my shoulder. I got knocked out. We were sort of...”

 

“Kidnapped.” Charon filled in for her. “I was chained up.”

 

“Yeah. He thinks they worked for some slavers. They were talking about selling us.” Spoon explained.

 

Simms looked surprised, then worried. “They're getting too bold. That's way too close to Megaton for _my_ comfort.” He sighed after a minute, digging around in his coat pocket. “As long as you wiped 'em out, there's really nothing else to do for the moment. Here's the caps.” He said, passing a small sack to Spoon.

 

Spoon nodded, tipping her hat in a farewell. “So long, Calamity.” She grinned, making Lucas laugh and doff his own hat.

 

“Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.” Simms said with a smile, waving them off.

 

“What was all that about?” Charon asked once they were out of earshot.

 

Spoon gave him a sidelong smile. “He's a big fan of the old-world westerns. My...someone I knew in the vault was too, so occasionally I quote something at him and he quotes right back.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“Do _you_ like westerns?”

 

“Too many horses for my liking.” Charon grumbled.

 

“Aw.” Spoon was disappointed, but excited that Charon expressed a personal dislike that had nothing to do with the safety of their locale.

 

* * *

 

“Spoon! Come on in, just clearing up a little infesta-- _oo_ , who's your friend?” Moira bounded around the counter, eyes wide as she pressed her hands to Charon's chest. The ghoul started in surprise, stepping back and snarling while Spoon began to laugh.

 

“Hands off Moira, he's mine.” Spoon said with an easy grin.

 

Moira pouted. “Psh, you _would_ swing that way, Vaultie. I don't suppose I could rent him out for a spell? Clearly, I have some _research_ to do.”

 

“Nice try, love.” Charon watched the flush that spread across Moira's cheeks at the term of endearment, “I'm no slaver. Show my partner some respect for his personal space. I'm here to buy, and maybe sell you some of this junk. 'Sides, I could never part with Charon. He's saved my ass one too many times.”

 

“Aw fine. You're no fun, y'know that?” Moira grumbled, turning away to walk back behind her counter. Spoon crept up beside her, deftly pulling the redhead towards her into a graceful dip. Charon swallowed hard as Spoon murmured something quietly to the shop owner.

 

_This woman is something else_ , the ghoul mused while Moira sputtered and turned bright red. Spoon released her, again mentioning that she was here on business. It was a decidedly giddier Moira that began to haul out boxes of ammunition and accoutrements, babbling all the while about her experiments.

 

* * *

 

“Gold star! You handled her like a champ!” Spoon praised Charon teasingly as they headed back to her house with arms full of ammunition and other supplies.

 

Charon shook his head. “You had an... _interesting_ way of changing her tune.” His voice held quiet disapproval that did not go unnoticed by Spoon.

 

The scavenger shrugged as she fumbled around unlocking the door with her hands full. “She's used to people avoiding her because they think she's nuts. Now, I ain't saying she isn't, but she's not a _bad_ sort.” Spoon carried on as she dumped her ammunition into her comfy chair, “I use almost the exact same tactics on any trader I come across, anyhow. It's only gotten me shot at a few times. Mostly by angry wives.” Spoon sniggered. “It even worked on Ahzrukhal.”

 

“Why would you have tried it on Ahzrukhal?” Charon seemed to have a difficult time getting the words out of his mouth. “I-I mean...what made you think it would work on a ghoul?”

 

“It was a gamble. I didn't _know_ it would work. I just hoped real hard.” Spoon smiled, putting a hand on Charon's arm. “I'm glad it did, though.” Realizing what she was doing, she quickly pulled away with a cough. “I mean, y'know. You've been really helpful with stuff. And I hope you're more happy. Anything's probably better than leaning against that wall for hours.”

 

“You have no idea.” Charon mused, his expression troubled. He knelt, spreading an old, stained cloth on the floor.

 

Spoon was now very familiar with the ritualistic cleaning of his shotgun that occurred every evening. She watched him sometimes, silently of course. She didn't want to interrupt. He didn't really seem _happy,_ per se, but there was a quiet contentment in his body language that wasn't present any other time. She sat down on the floor, and started tugging off her heavy boots. Charon paid her no mind as he carefully unloaded the shotgun and began disassembling it. Spoon pretended to be occupied with sorting out the different types of ammo, sneaking cautious glances at Charon's sure movements.

 

Within a half hour, Charon was done. He held out a hand abruptly, making Spoon jump and almost drop the ammunition she had been 'sorting'. He looked up at her, raising an eyebrow. “Your gun. Want it cleaned?”

 

Spoon cleared her throat, feeling caught and _very_ awkward. “Show me how you do it? I've probably been doing it wrong this whole time. I've never had anyone to show me so I just kind of figured it out.” She admitted, passing the ghoul her rifle and sitting back down next to him.

 

* * *

 

“See, normally I just kind of swab it out with a damp cloth an' call it quits. It's kept it going for this long.” Spoon explained.

 

Charon grumbled to himself, already noticing the built-up layers of grime in the rifle's barrel. “You're lucky as hell that this thing hasn't exploded in your face, smoothskin.”

 

“I never said it didn't!” Spoon protested, and Charon noticed for the first time (with a flicker of amusement) that her eyebrows were growing back in odd patches. “But it's the first weapon I ever found, and...I kind of love it, y'know?” She said weakly. “I mean, that thing and my knife have saved my hide probably thousands of times.”

 

“Well I'll show you the basics, so if I ever...I mean, if _you_ ever decide to part with my contract, you can, uh,” Charon cleared his throat, “Stay safe.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

The quiet word was so genuine it made Charon feel uncomfortable. He busied himself with wordlessly showing her the basic ways to clean the weapon. Numerous times he was forced to put his hands over hers to guide them, as her fingers were somewhat indelicate and unsure, and he found himself silently hoping that she wasn't disgusted by his touch.

 

“I left the vault with nothing but a BB gun and a baseball bat, and I didn't even know how to upkeep _them_ , so you can imagine how foreign this all is to me.” Charon almost jumped when she spoke, hastily reigning himself in as he automatically scanned the room for threats. Spoon sighed heavily. “Everybody in the place was either trying to kill me or telling me to get the fuck out. I was lucky I got out alive.”

 

“A Vault-Dweller, huh?” Charon commented, keeping his tone level. Spoon nodded, an unhappy look turning her face dark. Charon was surprised to find that he missed the way her face was before. Preferences were...odd. When he worked for Ahzrukhal, he didn't need to worry about preferences. There wasn't all that much to worry about. Certainly not much to think about or do. Knock a few heads in, leave Patches at The Chop Shop. Clean his gun. Try to recall what it felt like to eat on a regular basis. Sometimes in a desperate bid to keep his sanity, Charon would make lists in his head. Songs he remembered, places he had been. He didn't want to forget. Charon rotated his shoulders and stood, grumbling low in his throat. _Now isn't the time for this shit_.  “I'm tired.”

 

He felt the prickle of something that he vaguely recognized as guilt when he saw her eyes flash with poorly concealed hurt at his dismissal. But she quickly mastered herself, getting up and bidding him goodnight.

 

Her hand lingered on his arm too long again. Charon found that sleep eluded him for quite a while.

 

* * *

 

The low rattle of crank gun fire told them where the mutant was long before they could hear it hollering. “I'll come about down this hall. You flank him from the other hall. Stay low, shoot in the reload zone.” Charon hissed.

 

Spoon nodded grimly, and bolted for the hallway. She gritted her teeth against the fear she felt swelling in her chest. She _hated_ super mutants, hated their smell, their yelling, and _especially_ their nasty penchant for making themselves goody bags of human remains for later. Spoon skidded to a stop beside a doorway as the crank gun whirred to a stop.

 

_Shoot in the reload zone._

 

Spoon whipped her gun around the doorframe, cracking a shot off into the super mutant's neck. Blood spurted as the mutant let out an enraged bellow, fumbling with the crank gun. Spoon managed to get two more shots off, both burying themselves uselessly in the beast's shoulder.

 

_Charon where are you?_ She thought in a panic, scrambling away from the doorway as the crank gun whirred back to life. Bullets started to rip through the wall over her head, and she fled back down the hall.

 

“ _Found you!_ ”

 

Spoon couldn't suppress the scream that bubbled up in her throat as a massive hand landed on her shoulder and spun her around. She fired point-blank into the mutant's stomach, the panic making her jerk the trigger twice.

 

The rifle jammed.

 

The mutant grinned, exhaling a foul breath into her face. Spoon flicked the trigger forward and then back. Nothing. The super mutant picked her up around the neck and Spoon hastily wrapped an arm around its hand, saving her neck from instantly being snapped by the weight of her body. She frantically pumped the trigger of the rifle as the mutant laughed, tears starting to come as she prayed for the damn thing to work work _work_ _please-!_

 

She pressed the muzzle of the gun to the mutant's face as her vision started to gray out. All she could hear was the maniac, discordant laughter of the creature and the useless clicking of her gun.

 

_So this is how I die?_ The calm thought surprised her into ceasing to struggle for a minute. _Huh. This is definitely looking like how I die. I only wish I could have been stronger. Strong enough to kill this giant, dumb_ \--

 

The rifle abruptly fired into the mutant's face, neatly shearing through the skull and taking a chunk of minuscule brain with it. The mutant stopped laughing, face frozen in shock. The fingers around Spoon's neck tightened into a throat-crushing grip, and then relaxed as the beast slumped to the ground. Spoon rolled away, coughing and sucking air into her lungs. She flung an arm out and scooped up her rifle, standing on shaky legs.

 

_Charon. Where is Charon?_ She wondered, rummaging through the super mutant's armor for anything useful. She wished she was strong enough to easily use the crank gun, but no such luck. Those things weighed a _ton_ , and no matter how good they were in a pinch there was no way she was lugging one around. The worry for Charon started to eat away at her, and she cautiously crept further down the hall. She could hear grunts and struggling in a room ahead, but it was too dark to see anything. “Charon?” She hissed, one hand on the wall and the other on her gun as she carefully felt her way forwards.

 

“ _Time to die!_ ” The scream cut through the black, making Spoon blanch from how close it was.

 

“Charon!” She called, fumbling in her pockets and coming up with a matchbook.

 


	6. Dark-Glorious-Cringe-Careful

“Keep back smoothsk--!” Charon's yell was cut short as the super mutant slammed the butt of its rifle into his jaw, knocking him back on his ass. Charon spat off to the side, thoroughly pissed off with his luck. He'd had no idea the supermutant was in here. He was running to circle around and help Spoon and he had come careening right into the mutant's lair. The fucking thing had batted his shotgun right out of his hands and off into the darkness. It had been either release the gun or have his wrists busted in two.

 

Charon growled in frustration, his knife itchy in his hands as he got to his feet. A tiny flare of light got his attention, and in the moment that he turned to look the super mutant howled and swung the rifle like a club into the side of his head. Pain exploded in a red haze across Charon's field of vision and he dropped to one knee.

 

With the look of horror on Spoon's face that he had seen in the brief flicker of the match burned into his brain, Charon snarled, attempting to stand again. The rifle swung into his ribs, tossing him a few feet like a kicked dog. He laid there in the dust, the orders screaming _get up get up contract holder danger_ _ **Spoon danger get up!**_ Charon groaned, feeling his ribs slide across one another in his side as he rolled over and struggled to rise.

 

* * *

 

_Where is his gun? Where is his gun?!_ Spoon thought frantically, feeling around in the layer of dirt and sand on the floor.  _The mutant must have knocked it out of his hands. I would have heard it fire--thing kicks like a mule_ , she reasoned, stifling a triumphant holler as her fingers brushed against the familiar barrel of the shotgun. 

 

She quickly picked it up. But how to get back to Charon? _If he's even still alive_. She hated the thought as soon as it came to her.

 

The super mutant was still in the room, evidenced by the heavy breathing that goaded her to panic. Spoon squinted in the darkness. It was pitch...wait. No. There was the doorway! It was barely noticeable in the black, and she couldn't be sure if her brain was just playing tricks on her, making her see what she wanted to see in the dark, but it was something!

 

“ _I'm gonna eat your arms when you're dead, human!_ ” The super mutant yelled angrily. Spoon could hear it flailing around, and guessed that it was probably across the room. She ran for the door, only just managing to avoid tripping over the larger chunks of debris on the floor. Then her foot caught on something soft and she sprawled over it, the wind knocked out of her.

 

“Dammit, smoothskin--” Charon grunted, flooding her with a delicious shock of relief.

 

_He's alive!_ “Charon!” She gasped, “gun!” 

 

* * *

 

Feeling that glorious, _genius_ smoothskin partner of his press the shotgun into his limp hands was almost enough to get Charon ready to go toe-to-toe with the mutant again.

 

Almost. His body protested violently when he attempted to stand, though. He groaned, fingers scrabbling in the grit on the floor. Spoon seemed to realize that something was wrong. “Charon?” Her voice shook. Barely, just a hint on the end of his name, but enough to let Charon know that she was scared.  
  


The ghoul coughed, spitting up something he hoped wasn't blood as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. “This thing did a number on me smoothskin. I'm sorry.”

 

Small hands covered his on the shotgun. “Then let me help. What do I need to do?”

 

“Just--” Charon gritted his teeth. “--try to keep me from fallin' on my ass when I fire, alright?”

 

Spoon was behind him in a second, her chest pressed to his back. She tucked her hands into the pockets of his pants, then scrunched them into fists to hold him steady while Charon tried to stand. With Spoon's help, the giant ghoul finally managed to get to his feet. The broken bones in his side clacked and jammed against one another, making his breath catch in his throat.

 

He raised his gun, trying to listen for where the mutant was scuffling around over the roaring of blood in his ears. A head shot would be positively marvelous right now, but he would take what he could get.

 

Charon felt Spoon exhale hard when the super mutant let out an infuriated roar, _very_ close and confused at where its prey had gotten to. Charon grinned and squeezed the trigger of his gun rapidly, feeling Spoon's fists tighten in his pockets in response to the kicks from the shotgun. The mutant screamed once more over the thunder of the shots, then there was a heavy _thud_.

 

The silence was a welcome change, and Charon relaxed when he realized the mutant's heavy, erratic breathing was gone. “Well. Now that  _that's_ over with.”

 

* * *

 

“What happened to you?” Spoon finally asked, once she thought her voice was strong enough to keep from shaking. She felt Charon's leg muscles shift under her fists as he went to move, and she quickly pulled her hands out of his pockets.

 

Spoon hesitantly replaced her hands on his hips when Charon stopped, and the ghoul grunted, “Thank you. Makes it easier to move if I don't have to wonder about how I'm getting back up. Did you have matches or something?” He asked.

 

“Oh!” Spoon had forgotten all about her matchbook in the chaos. She quickly handed it over to Charon.

 

The ghoul struck a clump of four or five matches, cradling his shotgun in the crook of his elbow as he surveyed the room. “Alright, it's not looking like he's going to get back up anytime soon.” Charon said finally.

 

Spoon sighed. “Let's just scav the rooms and get the fuck out of here before something stupider happens.”

 

“Took the words right out of my mouth, smoothskin.”

 

“Can I set you down by the door and I'll just go through this guy real quick?” Spoon asked, waiting for the ghoul's nod before easing him down. Charon hissed out a breath and Spoon was instantly worried. “What is it?”

 

“It's nothing. I'll be fine.” Charon brushed her off.

 

Spoon wasn't buying it, however, and after a quick sweep of the room and a few things jammed into her pockets she returned and helped Charon stand again. “Come on, I need light if I'm going to patch you up.”

 

“I'm _fine_ \--”

 

“No, you're not. Remember what I said? If you're hurt, just tell me so I can fix you. Don't shuffle on pretending you're okay.” Spoon grunted, shifting more of the ghoul's weight to rest on her shoulders.

 

Charon grumbled something under his breath, grudgingly putting one foot in front of the other and letting her help him back down the hall. By the time they reached the main room though, the ghoul was breathing hard and holding his side in a death grip, presumably to keep the bones from jamming against each other anymore.

 

“Alright, sit down here. We should be safe.” Spoon said, helping Charon sit and then beginning to dig through her pack for Stims.

 

“Just irradiated water. I'll be alright with that. Don't waste the Stims.” Charon breathed.

 

Spoon was having none of it however, hands busy undoing the straps of his combat armor. “How about you just shut up and let me help. I'm not _wasting_ Stims, I'm using them on my partner.”

 

“Spoon, I--”

 

“ _Shut_. Up. Let me work.” She snapped, peeling the armor off and tossing it over her shoulder. Charon instantly fell silent and moved his arm to the side, allowing Spoon to tug his shirt up and see the damage. Spoon swallowed hard, now not only worried about the injury as it dawned on her that she had issued an order.

 

Charon was unnaturally still, eyes focused on the wall behind her.

 

“Sorry, I didn't mean that...um. That order. Disregard it.” She apologized, watching his body shudder oddly. The look he gave her was strange, but she chalked it up to the probably _incredible_ amount of pain he was in and dropped her eyes to pay attention to her work. She wasn't sure if the Stims she had would be enough. She still cracked the seal on the first one and weaseled the needle into his tough skin; Stims be fucked, mutants be fucked, she _wasn't_ losing him. Not here, not like this, not _ever_ , hopefully. She paused. _Not ever? Pretty strong words for the kid who almost got choked out by super mutants._ Spoon flushed a dull red, turning to rummage in her pack for irradiated water.

 

Charon groaned behind her, shifting his legs restlessly.

 

“Sorry. I'm looking for rad water. I know it'll probably do you more good anyhow.” Spoon said quietly. Her hand finally caught the jug, and she hoisted it out of her bag with a triumphant grin. “Got it!”

 

“Holy shit smoothskin, why the fuck do you tote that fucking much rad water?” Charon wheezed incredulously, gladly taking the proffered jug from her.

 

“In case I get something shot off that I want to keep.” Spoon replied. Charon gave her a quizzical look between gulps of water. Spoon sighed. “I did some work for Moira once. Left me a little...weird. If I'm heavily irradiated, stuff regrows. Important stuff, like limbs.”

 

“So this shit,” Charon paused to slosh the jug, “Is your failsafe?”

 

“I suppose so, yeah.”

 

Charon was silent for a minute. “You're a smart one, you know that?”

 

Spoon blushed furiously. “I'm just doing what I need to survive. How do you feel?”

 

Charon gave her a thumbs up while chugging down the rest of the water. “Million bucks.” He replied wryly.

 

Spoon got to her feet, stretching. “Let's spend the night here. If there were any other super mutants inside, we'd definitely know by now. And I'm kind of exhausted. That mutant earlier almost did me in.” She yawned.

 

* * *

 

A prickle of worry ran down Charon's spine. “Why, what happened?” He asked.

 

Spoon waved it off. “It had me around the neck for a minute. It got kinda' tense, but I sorted it out.”

 

“Are you sure? You could be injured. Let me see.” Charon gestured for her to come closer, disliking the swimming feeling in his head from the irradiated water. Spoon unbuttoned her duster, pulling the collar down to show Charon the angry purple marks from the super mutant's hand.

 

“I'm gonna' have one fucker of a bruise, but I'll be okay.” Spoon said cheerily.

 

Charon shook his head. “That thing could have snapped your neck. You're damn lucky it wasn't hungry.”

 

“What about _your_ mutant, Charon? ” She asked, continuing to unbutton her coat.

 

The ghoul coughed, a little embarrassed with himself. “It uh, essentially slapped the gun right out of my hands. It was either let go of the gun, or not have functioning wrists. I still had my knife so I thought I would be alright.”

 

Spoon was quiet for a minute. “Did you know that it was there? The...mutant?” Her voice seemed unusually serious.

 

“I...I apologize, Mistress. I did not. I was coming around to help you, as we had planned.” Charon looked away. _I didn't want it to hurt you. I thought you were dead after the first one stopped making noise. I thought it was eating you, I thought--_ “I'm sorry. I've failed you again.”

 

“No! No, it's alright. You didn't do anything wrong. Thank you for protecting me.” The smile she gave him felt like a punch to the stomach.

 

“Mis--Spoon. You know someday you _will_ have to punish me. I was human at one point, and I still have all the faults and failures. I'm going to let you down Spoon, and it will be your job to discipline me just as it is my job to follow you.” Charon stated bleakly. A gentle hand touched his chin, and Charon found himself staring into a pair of serious brown eyes. He swallowed hard, feeling his stomach knot at what he saw in those eyes. _She is...feeling some sort of affection for me?_

 

“Charon, what do I have to do to get you to understand that I'm _not_ _like_ any of your other partners?” Spoon asked, exasperation bleeding through her tone.

 

“You are also not the first one of my employers to tell me that. There have been others that started out like you, Spoon. Who knows? Maybe you've just kept the act up a bit longer and better than the rest.” Charon shrugged, shaking free of her hand. “It is more beneficial to my mental and physical health if I do not concern myself with hoping for things I know won't happen to someone like me. I'll go take the first watch.”

 

“Don't bother.” Spoon said quietly, getting to her feet and straightening out her duster with a loud, angry _snap_ of stiff cloth. “You're hurt, and I wouldn't be much of a master if I didn't give my prize buy time to heal, now would I?”

 

“Spoon that's not--”

 

“Save it!” She snapped, jamming her hat on and taking up an angry stance by the door. After a minute or two, Charon heard a stifled sniffle.

 

“Spoon...” Charon pulled himself to his feet, but slumped against the wall a second later as his head spun wildly. He huffed out a quick breath before sliding back down to sit on his ass. “Damn it all.” He snarled, feeling helpless yet again. The sniffling continued, making him grumble in irritation. “Crying isn't going to make me more likely to believe you, smoothskin.”

 

“Well what the hell else can I do?” The young woman retorted loudly, balling her fists. “What do you want me to say?! ' _Oh Charon, I'm all shook up on account of you almost getting made into a bag of remains_ '?” She continued, pitching her voice up into a shrieking falsetto. “Or how about, ' _I could have lost you to a giant green fucking monster, who wouldn't have hesitated to pop your head off had it been hungrier!_ '”

 

“ _Hey!_ ” Charon roared, “Don't you think for one fucking second that you were the only one scared! I didn't know whether you were--I thought-I thought the first one might have fucking _killed_ you and that I was too late _again!_ ” His legs seemed to gather strength from his outrage, propelling him up and across the room to tower over Spoon in the doorway. “It wouldn't have mattered _then_ whether you were a decent human being or not because I would have had to rifle through your _mangled_ corpse for my goddamn contract and shove it into the hands of the next bastard I came across! I would have had t--!” He stopped, hand raised in the beginning of an irritated motion.

 

Spoon's fingers were white-knuckled around the hilt of her knife, brown eyes fixed on his hand and a slight hunch in her shoulders. Realization hit Charon like a bolt of lightning, and he let his hand fall. The anger began to ebb out of him as Spoon didn't loosen her grip on her knife, her gaze following his hand.

 

“The contract forbids me from striking you, Spoon.” He said finally, his voice sounding too loud in the surrounding silence.

 

“I don't know that, now do I, Charon?” She responded through clenched teeth.

 

“And even if it didn't, I tend to avoid hitting people who might be decent human beings.” Charon continued, taking a step back as an incredulous look skittered across Spoon's face. Her death-grip on the knife began to relax and a flush started to stain her cheeks.

 

“I'm--I'm sorry, I didn't actually think you were going to hit me or anything Charon, I just-”

 

“It's alright. I've taken enough beatings to know.” Charon made a sweeping gesture with his hand, his fierce expression gone. “Come sit, Spoon. We should be safe here anyhow, now that the mutants are dead.”

 

* * *

 

“But-!” Spoon began.

 

“Please.” Charon's tone brooked no argument. Spoon bit her lip, watching worriedly as the ghoul lowered himself to the ground with a grimace. Spoon sat down beside him with a graceless _thud_. She folded her arms, resting her elbows on her knees as she looked sideways at Charon. The ghoul had his eyes closed, head tilted back against the wall as he breathed a little harder than Spoon was used to.

 

“I'm sorry about all that. Are you gonna' be alright?” She asked softly. Charon nodded, eyes still shut. Spoon watched his chest rise and fall, surprising even herself with the desire to touch him; to offer some sort of comfort, regardless of how feeble. What comfort could she give _him_ , though? She was just a scavenger, a wasteland rat. Couldn't even take care of her own gun, let alone the ghoul sworn to her service ' _for good or ill_ '. Spoon shifted downward into herself, feeling altogether like a very sorry sort of human being.

 

A murmured curse from the ghoul snapped her out of her self-loathing, and lit up the practical scavenger's mind with worries and fears anew for her... _friend?_ Could she even call him that? Hell, did she have the _right_ to call him that? _Doesn't really matter right now,_ she concluded inwardly, daring to put her hand timidly on his bare arm.

 

He flinched and his eyes shot to hers, questioning. “Just...just making sure you're okay.” She said hesitantly.

 

The smile he offered her, quick as it was, almost made her gasp in shock. “I'll be _fine_ , smoothskin. Just let the rad-water and Stims do their job.” He said, apparently not noticing the effect his smile had on her.

 

Spoon took a chance and left her fingers curled around his arm. He didn't seem to mind at all, but a low sound that might have been a sigh rumbled through his chest when she gave his arm an appreciative stroke. “Sorry,” Spoon whispered, and then, “You have really nice arms.”

 

She felt like kicking herself when Charon snorted derisively, “Oh yeah, best in the business,” then pointedly curled his arm to tense his muscles under her palm. She was silent for a moment, beet red as Charon seemed to play mental catch-up. “...that was a serious compliment, wasn't it.”

 

“...maybe?”

 

“Well, then I guess my 'not bad yourself' is also a maybe?”

 

* * *

 

Charon had no idea what he was doing. Spoon was...confusing. The rad-water was patching him up along with the Stims, but it was making him loopy. Lightheaded even. He wasn't sure whether he liked the feeling. He was almost _flirting_ with his employer, rewarding her boldness with a languid ripple of muscle and practically purring when she touched him. It was empowering to hear her breathing quicken, feel the chill in her barely shaking hand. She was fully aware of how powerful he was. She of all people was fully aware, and yet...

 

She didn't seem afraid. No more than she would be touching any other man. The tremble of her fingers on his fever-hot skin just seemed to be regular in a woman that was dealing with a previous blast of adrenaline. That in and of itself was a heady thing to Charon. Spoon _wanted_ to touch him, and not out of fear or pity. She was...she _might_ be attracted to him. Him!

 

Few and far between were his female employers, and none of them had been sound mentally. It was strange to be around a woman who was...in a relative aspect, _normal_. She wanted to touch him. She wanted him to speak his mind, to tell her when he was distressed or at a disadvantage so she could help him. Like she cared, and not only because he was her fuck-shit-up machine.

 

_She_ _ **cares**_ _._ The thought made Charon stiffen. It was almost frightening, in a way. He might mean something to someone now. Someone might worry about him if he got hurt. More importantly, _he_ might care more than the contract dictated he had to if a certain someone else got hurt.

 

_Fuck_. What if he cried? What if he did that whole, “ _I can't live without you_ ” business as he buried his face in her hair and wept poetically for what he had lost? Charon almost snorted at that. _Her caring about me isn't gonna' turn me soft._

 

_...I hope._

 

A hand gently squeezed his arm again, interrupting his train of thought. Charon kept his face bland as he carelessly flexed his bicep against her grip. He grinned inwardly at the expression on her face. She clearly hadn't expected him to be this agreeable with her. She had probably thought he would tell her to fuck off.

 

Her fingers danced across his arm, down to his wrist which she then pulled closer to her face, presumably to examine the intricate patchwork that was his flesh and muscle. He wiggled his fingers bemusedly, watching her face light up as she traced the individual muscles working through the inside of his forearm to his elbow.

 

_She is something else_ .

 

For all he cared, Spoon could study his miraculous musculature until the sun came up.

 


	7. Hand Off-Alone-Bound-Knuckles

Spoon knew she was really, _really_ lucky at this point. He had let her pull his wrist practically into her lap so she could look at it closer, and she assumed she must be using up all sorts of future favors. She couldn't help it though! The visibility of his muscles was captivating, and she itched to document all of their motions. Her fingers traced the red areas up and down his forearm, then moved to his leg.

 

“You want me to take my pants off too? _Needy_ smoothskin.” Charon's teasing tone snapped her out of her mindless exploration, and she felt her face start to heat as Charon took her hand.

 

Much like she had done with him, he trailed his fingers across her forearm. Her pulse hammered traitorously as he pressed a thumb to her wrist, all the while so casual and calm. “Do I fascinate you or something, Mistress?” The tone in his voice was odd now, and Spoon worried that she might have offended him. “Am I a good patient to examine, Doc?”

 

She remained silent, tongue tied as he somewhat brazenly continued to check her pulse.

 

“Good news Spoon, you're still alive. A little racy, but seemingly none the worse for the wear.” The ghoul said solemnly, his eyes giving away his inner mirth as he looked at Spoon.

 

She huffed indignantly, finding her voice to grumble, “No need to poke fun at me, you giant fucker,” while trying to tug her wrist from his grip. She might as well have been trying to remove her hand from a block of concrete. Charon didn't even seem to notice she wanted to get her hand back, his strong fingers firm against her skin. He raised her hand to his face, eyes inquisitive as he began poking and prodding her wrist. Spoon giggled in spite of herself and the sound seemed to please Charon. The corners of his mouth quirked upwards. “Alright, I'm sorry. I won't treat you like my own personal lab dummy.” Spoon apologized. “It was rude of me. Can you accept my apology so I can have my hand back?”

 

Charon released her wrist, seeming to almost pout. “Fine. But next time, I'm taking it with me.”

 

Spoon gulped. “You wouldn't.”

 

Charon grinned in a manner that was more akin to baring his teeth. “You don't want to know how many times I've heard that.”

 

“How many times have you threatened to take someone's hand with you?!” Spoon squawked.

 

* * *

 

“Enough times to know the noises a hand makes when you separate it from the body.” Charon growled in reply, making Spoon snicker.

 

“You're awful. You're only half-joking too, aren't you?” She jibed, gently elbowing him in the side.

 

“Me to know, you to never find out.” Charon watched Spoon scrabble through her bag, tossing little bits of junk this way and that as she dug deeper. His chest tightened as he thought of how close he had come to having his contract holder killed. His brow furrowed. He would just have to be more careful is all. _No more mistakes._

 

Spoon pulled out an old, banged up Pip Boy, presumably to use the light on it to read something that she reverently took out of an inner pocket.

 

Charon hesitated to ask, but... “What is that?” He kept his voice quiet, so Spoon could ignore his inquiry if she wanted to.

 

Spoon jolted, looking up almost like she had forgotten he was there. “Oh! Uh, nothing. It's nothing. Don't worry about it. Get some sleep, Charon. Busy day tomorrow.” She mumbled, already re-absorbed with reading...whatever it was.

 

Charon huffed. “Sleep is a luxury, _not_ a necessity, Mistress. May I patrol the hall for threats?” He gestured to the door that led to the foyer. Her noncommittal murmur in reply made him roll his eyes. Charon stood, a strange urge taking hold of him that demanded to be acted on. He felt weirdly _playful_ , teasing, almost drunk and he chalked it up to the rad water. “May I make you scream my name as you ride my cock?” He asked in the same tone as before, his smirk fading as he realized what he had just said. _Fuck._

 

“Mm, yeah. Sure thing Charon.” The smoothskin replied, clearly absorbed in leafing through that book. Charon grimaced, somewhat relieved that Spoon _had_ actually been that distracted. Otherwise, things could have gotten rather awkward. That being said, he took minute pleasure in lowering a hand and rumpling her hair on his way across the room. But the smoothskin didn't even look up. Her brow just furrowed, like she was thinking excessively hard on something.

 

Charon moved into the foyer and made himself comfortable in an old office chair, his shotgun lazily propped up on a blasted-out computer monitor. _What a day,_ he thought, feeling his eyes grow heavy as he listened for the tell-tale sounds of something stirring in the night.

 

* * *

 

Spoon awoke groggy the next morning, realizing in a flash that it was _much_ later than normal. The light fighting its way through the boarded-up windows was a golden russet color, indicating the lateness of the day.

 

_Why didn't Charon wake me?_ Spoon wondered, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. A small scrap of cloth on the floor beside her caught her attention and she picked it up curiously. It was saturated with...something. A quick sniff made her vision spin, and she threw the rag, gagging. “Med-X.” Spoon said aloud, swearing as she noticed the absence of her rifle. “Charon!” She called, thoroughly worried now. Spoon got to her feet, sliding the hunting knife out of her boot and slowly advancing towards the lobby. Every sense was on high alert, her brain running through a list of possibilities as long as the Potomac. _Did Charon drug me in my sleep?_ If he hadn't, where was he? What had happened? And why did her heart feel like it was trying to slam its way out of her chest?

 

Spoon peered around the corner of the doorway, shoulders slumping when she realized the foyer was deserted. She crouched, hearing her father's words echo faintly as she began her 'forensic investigation'.

 

_Alright Eleanor, **think** . Look for marks, signs, anything. You're a smart kid. _

 

Spoon shook her head. Not him. Never him. He had _abandoned_ her, left her parentless in a vault full of psychopaths. She gritted her teeth, focusing on the task at hand. _I gave Charon Stims and rad water last night. What do Stims do to ghouls besides heal them very slowly? What does radiation do to ghouls in general? Makes them happy, makes them loopy._ Her eyes widened. _Makes them sloppy_.

 

What if there had been something else living in this building? What if it came from _inside_ the building while Spoon was asleep? They had drugged her and taken her rifle, and then...

 

A desperate noise fought free of Spoon's throat, a quiet animal-sound. _Charon_ . Her fingers traced huge footprints, _Charon's_ footprints in the drifted sand and dirt on the floor. Numerous other footprints, crisscrossed and walked over and over again. Too many. At least six people, maybe more. Some dried blood in the dirt. Frayed bits of rope.

 

Spoon's own blood ran cold when her fingers touched something formidable almost wholly covered in the sand. It was Charon's hunting knife, she recognized the wicked-looking half-serrated blade like it was an old friend. Charon's skill with the blasted thing had been legendary in her eyes. He had shown her a few tricks but she knew she would never come close to his level. Finding his knife without him attached to it was like the final nail in the coffin. Spoon swallowed hard, not surprised at the lack of Charon's shotgun after her own gun had vanished.

 

The idea that she was alone again hit her much harder than she would have liked. Tears blurred her eyes for what felt like forever as she contemplated what she could do. She felt like she was leaving the vault all over again, stepping shaky-legged and terrified out into the blistering sunlight and thin air of a world she did not know, and a world that would not hesitate to punish her for her ignorance.

 

“ _I don't want you to follow me. God knows life in the vault isn't perfect, but at least you'll be safe._ ”

 

Her father had said those words before he vanished, gone back to the only thing he had ever loved. Spoon's face hardened and she picked up Charon's knife. She stared at it for a long minute, and then her knuckles whitened on the hilt. Charon was the closest thing to a friend she had out here. He was the only one who ever protected her, regardless of whether it was in his contract to do so. Fuck, she'd even gotten him to _smile_ a few times. She doubted _that_ was in the contract. He had said that she might be a good person. Well, here was her chance to prove it.

 

Now _she_ had to be the unstoppable killing machine. A part that, regardless of her smaller size, she was more than willing to play. Charon had to be hurt in order for him to have been dragged off with her still in possession of the contract, and that thought alone made her seethe. Her eyes followed a long furrow in the dirt and sand on the floor where something had been dragged. Something Charon-size. The trail led back into the building, past where she had slept, down another hallway.

 

Another thought made her stop cold. Maybe...maybe the Med-X was supposed to have killed her. She _had_ been exposed to a fair amount of it in the vault, due to her attempts to find the best possible ways to get her bones broken, either by the so-called, 'Tunnel Snakes' or other more accidental ways. She might have built up a tolerance to it. Out here, Med-X was hard to come by. A small dose could be lethal enough to kill someone with no prior exposure. After all, they hadn't even _injected_ her with it, just dripped some onto a rag, put it over her nose and smothered her until she lost consciousness. She probably hadn't even woken up when they did it. She certainly didn't _remember_ waking.

 

Spoon scrambled to her pack, hidden before she had fallen asleep. She'd learned fairly quick that if you didn't want to wake up with your things gone, you hid them. And while the rifle was what she was most familiar with, she was by no means a slouch with her knife. _Especially since Charon taught me a few things_.

 

Spoon swallowed the lump of gratitude in her throat, focusing on what she had to do. She thanked whatever god there might be that even though she wore mismatched boots, both the ones she had were found with knife holsters clipped to them. Charon's knife slid into her right boot like it belonged there, and hers followed suit on the left. A quick reach down and she was armed. An older, rustier knife with a knuckle duster for a handle took up residence in her left hand, feeling heavy but _good_. Like it was made for her. Some more rummaging procured her Pip Boy for illumination and the remainder of her Stims filled her pockets.

 

Spoon squared her shoulders, adjusted her hat, and slipped silently into the hallway.

 

* * *

 

Charon didn't know how long it had been since he had been at the Institute. One hundred, three hundred years? It didn't matter. The headaches were just as crippling now, stirring unpleasant memories in his brain. He was bound with numerous layers of things; rope and wire and chains tied together with dingy padlocks. His head swam and pounded with every beat of his heart; the control phrase felt like a battering ram against the insides of his temples.

 

_Return to contract holder._

 

_Return to contract holder._

 

_Return to contract holder._

 

_**Spoon**._

 

This was worse than when he was with Ahzrukhal. He was nauseous, helpless, furious all at once. The chains, old as they were, were unyielding when he pulled against them. The ropes frayed but didn't snap like they had the first time. God, he was so _stupid!_ Falling asleep, _why_ did he take the rad water? He should have just taken the Stims and suffered quietly as everything slowly knit back together. Now he was trapped, chained to the wall in some hellhole. Spoon _must_ be dead, there's no way she survived. The raiders got past her somehow, killing her in her sleep would have been all too easy with her night watchman asleep at his post.

 

A new thought occurred to him that made him grit his teeth. _What if they had_...

 

The image flashed into his mind, unbidden and unwelcome. Her screaming, crying, begging as clothes were torn off, as she was exposed, as they--

 

Charon's shoulders tensed, rubbing raw in his bindings as he strained against them. He snarled largely out of frustration at the dark figures that slunk around the corners of the room in the half-light. How _dare_ they truss him up like a goddamn quivering coward? How _dare_ they let their _filth_ touch Spoon? _How dare they?!_

 

He threw himself against the chain, his boots slipping in the grime on the floor and dropping him onto his shoulder. _I swore to keep her safe. I told her I would keep her safe. The contract is supposed to keep her safe._ His head rested on the floor and he drew his knees up underneath him. His arms stretched out painfully behind him, biceps crushing against the ropes and wires digging into his skin. He breathed out a whine through gritted teeth, the floor feeling cold and soothing against his pounding head as he fought the urge to scream and vomit at the same time. His stomach was revolting against him, his body thinking that he was purposely rebelling against the contract. _You're not exactly in a great set of circumstances when your own body fights you mercilessly_. Charon thought with more than a touch of bitterness, retching.

 

A raider boot slammed into his ribs. Charon was freshly healed from the super mutant's onslaught and he prayed that everything had the chance to set right, because he was clearly about to have a few things re-broken. He closed his eyes, waiting for the blows to fall. The raider didn't disappoint and Charon retreated mentally into a quiet corner of his mind. An overwhelming sense of failure numbed the ghoul's body to the pain, replacing it with the empty feeling of knowing that once _again_ he needed an employer. And for all he knew, he already had one. There was no way one of these bastards hadn't taken the contract from Spoon's body and even if they didn't understand the significance of it yet, their small brains would put it together somehow.

 

If they didn't kill him first.

 

Charon could take a beating before the Institute, but he'd learned a few new tricks while being... _trained_. Like mentally detaching himself from the pain. It left him unaware to the world; something like closing his eyes and opening them again in a quiet, dim room. He would just sit and think about things. Many topics wandered through his mind in his own version of solitary confinement, and it usually took an immense force to wake him up from it before he was willing. Because that always meant the return of the pain was hot on its heels.

 

It was here that Charon found himself, quietly seated with his chin rested in his hand. The Wasteland might as well not even exist.

 

* * *

 

Spoon crept silently down the hall, the only noise her shallow breaths. Two raiders were already down, dead before they knew it. Throat-slitting was a quick and effective, if not _bloodier_ way of taking care of things.

 

She straightened her hat. Spoon's hat was a special hat. She had acquired it when she had gotten to Megaton and deactivated the bomb. Moira gave it to her as a sort of a housewarming present...as well as an apology for getting her heavily irradiated for Science. The hat had a larger brim than most, but that wasn't what made it special. Moira had taken scrap metal and formed a protective ring inside the hat around the hat band. It made the hat exceedingly heavy, but it also made Spoon _really_ good at taking blows to the head.

 

Usually when your enemy is busy recoiling from the fact that they just broke their fist on your forehead, they can't react to you headbutting them in the jaw with your metal skull. Spoon grinned to herself, attempting to keep her worries about Charon at bay. A few still managed to slip through, though. _Please be safe!_ She begged mentally, sneaking up on another raider. _Be strong for me, I'm coming! Don't die on me, big guy. I need you._

 

The raider bolted to his feet with a war cry, coming at Spoon with a revolver cocked and aimed for her heart. Spoon ducked and slammed her knuckle duster into his shin, grabbing Charon's knife out of its holster with her free hand. The raider screamed in pain, going down in the sand. His gun clattered against the wall, far out of reach. The young woman crossed her blades at the wailing man's throat, and leaned in _real_ close. “You keep whining like a bitch, and I'll bite your fucking ears off.” Spoon hissed. The man quieted, and Spoon smiled mirthlessly. “That's better. Now, my little friend, I'm _looking_ for someone. A buddy of mine. Maybe you've seen him?”

 

“W-we...we killed you! We suffocated you with the chems! You want the...the rotface?” The raider asked shakily.

 

Spoon sighed heavily and punched the man in the side of the head with her knuckle duster, tearing the skin. “Let's try this again, shall we?” She asked calmly as the man howled in pain.

 

“Th' ghoul! It's a ghoul, ain't it?” The raider sobbed.

 

“Better. He still alive?”

 

“I-if it is, it won't be for long!” The man's bloodied face twisted into a grin, and that sealed his fate.

 

Spoon slit the man's throat, got up and tipped her hat to his thrashing form. “Much obliged.” _Hang on Charon!_ She ran down the hallway full-speed, throwing caution to the wind. If there was anyone else nearby, they would have heard the ruckus of the Raider she had just killed and come running.

 

_I-if it is, it won't be for long!_

 

She shook her head, trying not to think about those words. ' _If', huh? Knowing Charon, he's got all of them tied up and he's picking his teeth with someone's shattered femur bone right about now._ Light up ahead startled her enough to get her to slow, and she switched off her Pip Boy light. She slunk further, swearing at herself for not picking up the Raider's pistol as she passed a mattress with a human torso nailed to it and numerous limbs hanging from the ceiling via sharp hooks. _How...quaint._ Spoon thought wryly as she glanced upwards. _They certainly do know how to make a girl feel at home._

 

She carefully peered around a doorway into what looked like an old classroom, and her eyes widened. _Charon!_

 

The ghoul looked like hell. His eyes were glazed over, and too many portions of his combat armor were stained with blood for Spoon's liking. A raider was in the process of swinging a baseball bat down onto the small of the chained ghoul's back. One other raider looked on idly, leaning against the wall and picking something off the bottom of his shoe.

 

Spoon's blood sang to the challenge, both knives in her hands ready and willing. “ _You get the hell away from my friend!_ ” She screamed, lunging for the raider with the bat. He turned and swung at her instead with a yell of surprise. The bat slammed into her knee, but Spoon pushed through the pain as her knives perforated the man's chest cavity. She proceeded to ventilate the first raider, blood spurting down the man's shirt and spattering on the floor.

 

The other raider grabbed Spoon around the throat from behind and heaved her into the air, but she forced her chin down into the crook of his elbow and bit his arm, making him holler. While he was distracted Spoon flipped one knife around and buried it in the man's unprotected side, forcing the blade in sideways between his ribs. The raider squealed in pain when she twisted the knife and then loosened his grip, allowing her to escape. She whirled and clumsily caught him across the face with her knuckle duster, tearing Charon's knife back out with a rasp of the saw against bone. The raider staggered back, dropping to his knees.

 

Spoon snarled, and she felt that Charon would have been proud of the furious noise. It was guttural, raspy and flat-out scary. She stood over the raider and asked, “Was it worth it, you little _fucker?_ ” The man scrambled back to his feet and Spoon tensed, moving to lunge again and essentially walking into a punch for her trouble. She heard a distinct _crunch_ and then there was an explosion of pain as her nose broke under his fist. _Sloppy, cocky, useless little Eleanor._

 

Her legs buckled, injured knee having a rough time holding her up, but to her credit she didn't fall. She lashed out with Charon's knife, ramming the blade up through the man's chin to hold his face steady so she could batter him to a lifeless pulp with her knuckle duster. She was vaguely aware of someone yelling, maybe her, maybe him. Then it was over, the raider's frame plopping wetly on the ground.

 

Spoon retched, spitting a little blood off to the side and starting to go through the raider's clothes for the keys to Charon's chains. She wanted to fix her nose, but she dreaded the idea of pushing it back into place. So get Charon free and safe first, then worry about her nose and knee.

 

Spoon finally found the key in one of the man's pants pockets, holding it aloft with a garbled cry of victory. She fought with the rusty padlocks on the wall for several minutes before they gave way and she let Charon's arms ease down to rest against his back. He was still breathing anyway, which calmed Spoon's mind somewhat as she sawed through some of the ropes holding him.

 

“Fucking _wire,_ really?” She grunted as the knife caught on it. “The fuckin' chains weren't sufficient for you, eh big guy?” Spoon bit her lip as the wire snapped under the stress of the knife. “I hope you're alright. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here.” Her voice was quiet and matter-of-fact. She knew this was her fault. She had incapacitated him, spoiled him with both Stims and irradiated water and made him lose his edge. “I...I won't do it again. I promise. I can't let you get hurt again.” She murmured. “You mean too much to me. I can't let you get hurt anymore. You're always there for me, and the one time I could have been, I fucked it all up. I'm...I'm so sorry.”

 


	8. Tears-Church-Dream-Restless

“ _You get the hell away from my friend!_ ”

 

Charon's eyes rolled open and instantly shut again. The light was so bright, his stomach too queasy to handle how the room was spinning. His ears picked up an all-too-familiar cry of pain, the sound of liquid splattering on the floor. There was a breathless gasp and something heavy hit the ground. Another yelp of pain, lower this time. The sick, dragging noise of a bone saw punching through someone's side.

 

Charon felt consciousness begin to fade again and he was ashamed at how quickly he submitted to its dark caress.

 

_Pain. The pain was almost intolerable. The headache was finally gone but everything else seemed to hurt in an effort to compensate. A voice. There was a voice. It was her. **Spoon**. Come to him in his delirium, his fever-dream. She was wearing a simple white pre-war dress, her hair curling in cascades down her back. _

 

“I hope you're alright. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here.” _She said softly, a gentle hand touching his face._

 

_Charon shook his head dazedly, moving through the pain to catch her hand before she pulled it away._

 

“I...I won't do it again. I promise. I can't let you get hurt again.” _She whispered to him, her eyes full of tears._ “You mean too much to me. I can't let you get hurt anymore. You're always there for me, and the one time I could have been, I fucked it all up. I'm...I'm so sorry.” _She began to fade, her hand disappearing from his_...

 

Charon blinked several times, then groaned as he realized he was still bound in the room. Someone was moving around, outside of his field of vision. But he didn't have the strength to turn his head and see what they were doing. So he stayed put. He felt the restraints loosen around his arms, though, and _that_ got his attention. He shifted, alerting the person to the fact that he was awake.

 

“ _Charon!_ ” Spoon's hands were bloody, her nose was crooked and her right eye was going to have one _hell_ of a shiner, but Charon couldn't have cared less if he wanted to. Right then, she looked fantastic.

 

“Smoothskin...you're alive.” He breathed. The relief that flooded Charon surprised him. Spoon grinned back at him, her own relief palpable.

 

The next second, he was freed from the restraints. Spoon wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her and seeming to partially cradle him while he waited for the feeling to come back to his fingers. Charon was too tired and sore to protest being coddled like a child. He just buried his face in Spoon's shoulder and luxuriated in the texture of the soft skin on her neck against his cheek. Spoon gently rocked him back and forth, one hand tentatively rubbing circles on the giant ghoul's raw back.

 

“I'm...I'm so glad.” She whispered. Charon felt something hot and wet drop onto his face. “I thought they killed you. I thought I failed you.”

 

Charon chuckled dazedly. “You cryin' for me, smoothskin? No one's ever cried for me before. Don't you start now. I thought _you_ were dead too, y'know. I thought...” Charon trailed off as he remembered how hollow he had felt when he thought Spoon was gone for good. It hadn't been a good feeling. _Certainly_ not what he was used to feeling when an employer died. “...I don't know what I thought.” The ghoul said instead. “But you've never failed me, Spoon. If anything, I failed you.”

 

Spoon made a shushing sound, her hold tightening on him. “Jesus Christ, you're essentially my only friend out here. I _can't_ lose you, Charon.” The following laugh shook a little. “You and Wads are all I have. No one else knows who or what I am. No one else has ever been there to fight for me, to distract raiders from me. No one-” Spoon stopped abruptly.

 

Charon felt her throat work against his cheek, and he gave a long, rumbling sigh. “Smoothskin...I-”

 

“I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said, I-I mean I--” Spoon stammered, seeming like she was about to pull away.

 

Charon grumbled again, effectively silencing her stutters. “I thought you were a goner smo-- _Spoon_. I thought my next step was seeing which one of these filthy pricks had picked up your contract. I thought I was going to have to work under the shit that murdered you.” Charon was surprised when his throat started to feel tight and odd. _Your contract. Yours._ The words came slower now. “You're so much stronger than you think you are, Spoon. You don't need me. You confuse me. You treat me like an equal, spoil me half to death with killing and Stims and food.” Charon shook his head as best as he could, mostly just rocking it against Spoon's neck. “I just...I know for a fact I don't deserve to be treated even as a _human_ , after some of the things I've done. Spoon I oughta' be killed a hundred times over for what I've done.” Charon mumbled, his words slurring a bit with exhaustion.

 

Spoon placed a reassuring hand on his cheek, and Charon was embarrassed to find himself leaning into the touch. She started emptying her pockets, pulling six or seven Stims out to the ghoul's wry amusement. “Lemme' give you these. Then, you get me back to Megaton where I can get to my supplies, and possibly have Church hammer my nose back into place.”

 

“Good thing I finished that rad water, huh?” Charon commented, getting a clogged chuckle out of the scavenger.

 

“Fuck you. I'll pour my vodka into your open wounds.” Spoon threatened, her crooked grin diffusing her words admirably as she started to treat his injuries.

 

* * *

 

The trip back to Megaton was somewhat slower, what with Spoon taking breaks to fuss over Charon. The ghoul didn't particularly seem to mind though. If Spoon wanted to fool herself, she might have thought that Charon looked at her more. And that his eyes seemed more peaceful when he did.

 

If Spoon had wanted to fool herself, she might have heard the concern in his voice when she had to curl in on herself with pain after trying to re-set her nose singlehandedly. She might have seen his wince when she rolled her pants up to examine her shattered knee.

 

If Spoon had wanted to fool herself, she might have done a lot of things.

 

* * *

 

Charon paced back and forth in front of the door to Doc Church's clinic.

 

_Why the hell do I care so much? She'll be fine. She's going to be okay. Why the **fuck** am I so worried?_ Charon thought furiously, forcing himself to sit down on the edge of the porch and take some deep breaths. His hands clenched and unclenched restlessly on his knees, mind wandering to how bad Spoon had looked when they finally got to Megaton...

 

“ _No, I don't need you to carry me. I'm okay...honest!_ ” Spoon had insisted, her smile looking more like a grimace stretched across her bruised face.

 

Charon sighed heavily. “ _We're still at least half an hour away. Please just let me help you, Mistress._ ”

 

“ _I'm telling you, I'm fi--!_ ” Charon wrapped one arm around Spoon's shoulders and tucked the other carefully under her knees, sweeping her up in the blink of an eye.

 

“ _What was that Mistress? I couldn't hear you._ ” The ghoul had quipped as Spoon tensed against him.

 

She glared up at him tiredly. “ _You're a real bitch, you know that?_ ”

 

“ _Been called much worse than that, smoothskin. Just relax and enjoy the ride. You're badly injured, and it's all because of me._ ” Charon had schooled his face into an impassive mask. “ _Let me help you._ ”

 

Spoon had settled against Charon's chest, groaning. Charon risked a glance down after a few moments. She was sound asleep, crooked nose casting an odd shadow in the moonlight playing over her pain-pale face.

 

The Charon then had tightened his grip. “ _I'm not going to let you fall._ ”

 

The Charon sitting on Doc Church's doorstep snarled at himself for being such a sentimental jackass.

 

* * *

 

“Alright you little shit, that should keep you coherent for a few days.” Church grumbled, wiping his hands on an old rag. Spoon offered him a wan smile, her exhaustion getting the best of her as she tried to stand. “Whoa now, you little vagabond. Just pay me and I'll call your king-sized shuffler to sweep you off your feet again.” Church said, tapping the jar next to his examination table and moving to the door. “Hey! Get up, you slug. He's fine, just in no shape to walk.”

 

Charon's massive form darkened the doorway, and Spoon started digging in her pockets. “Doc, I can't thank you enough-”

 

“Damn right you can't. Now just pay me and get out.” The old doctor said gruffly. Spoon dropped two handfuls of caps into the jar, making Church's eyes widen. “Listen here, you, I'll have no charity in my clinic! Pay me what you owe, and not a cap over.” He sputtered. Charon scooped Spoon up, the drained scavenger noticing how dark his eyes were. Like the ghoul was far away, gnawing on something in his mind.

 

Spoon caught Church's hand before Charon could carry her out the door. “It's not charity. It's an apology. I know I haven't been scavving nearly as many meds as I used to before. I'm sorry. Stuff's getting harder and harder to come by, y'know Church? But hopefully with that, it'll give you an edge when you have to bargain with the traders.” She explained.

 

Church's eyes softened. “Ah, get the hell out of here y' grifter.” He grunted good-naturedly, dropping her hand and waving her off. Charon didn't wait for further confirmation, almost running out the door.

 

* * *

 

_Failure._

 

Charon slowly came around to awareness, gripping his shotgun tightly. He had fallen asleep again in Spoon's large chair, and now her house was being overrun by raiders. They were everywhere, so many of them, missing ears and eyes and hands.

 

Charon went to move, only to find that chains even stronger than before wrapped around his arms and legs. His shotgun had disappeared in his moment of distraction, and he was left weaponless. He struggled against the chains, flailing in a frenzy while the noise level around him grew with his efforts. Blood and spit flew from his mouth as he screamed at the raiders, their ceaseless gibbering mocking his every move.

 

A fist slammed into his jaw from nowhere, effectively stilling the giant ghoul as his neck snapped painfully to the side. His left side lost all feeling in it while faces in the raider crowd began to change. Twisting, turning, bubbling skin gave way to decay and rot, raiders ghoulifying before his eyes.

 

Charon knew some of those faces, knew some of those burning eyes, and his heart sank. In his time with Spoon, he had almost forgotten one of Ahzrukhal's favorite forms of entertainment. But here it was, right back with him, crawling up under his skin and deadening his limbs.

 

Ahzrukhal was not above renting Charon out to get some quick caps, whether loaning him to a desperate ghoulette or passing him around a few fighting rings. But those were trivial troubles compared to what Charon was reliving right now.

 

It started with the Med-X. Ahzrukhal would wait until Charon was ravenous with hunger, not letting him eat for days beforehand. The bartender knew damn well that his bouncer needed to eat, but it was just one more thing that he could hold over his head. As if the contract wasn't enough. Anyone who was caught slipping Charon food was punished with a swift beating, usually from the bouncer himself per Ahzrukhal's orders. Then, Ahzrukhal would 'leave' something small on the bar counter when he went to his quarters for the night. A scrap of squirrel meat, or a few gristly chunks of a mole rat steak. There was the order that Ahzrukhal would throw over his shoulder before he left. “Eat, Charon.”

 

Charon would resist as long as he could, hoping that maybe this time was the time he would break the conditioning. Until finally, delirious with pain, hunger and orders _orders_ _ **orders**_ _scraping at the inside of his skull_ he would devour it.

 

He always tried to regurgitate the food, but Med-X worked so quickly when ingested. The relief of no longer having the _orders_ was gone almost instantly. His legs would give out and he would collapse on the floor, vision fading in and out as he watched Ahzrukhal creep from his room and smile down at him...

 

Charon could only recall bright, painful bits and pieces of what would happen afterwards. From what he could determine, Ahzrukhal charged three to six ghouls an exorbitant sum of caps, and then left them alone with a restrained Charon, a room full of bloodied instruments, some Stims and a friendly warning that their time would run out ' _sooner or later_ '.

 

They always looked so pleased with themselves, the ghouls who caused him such harm. Delighting in kicking a drugged-up dog. He was powerless to do anything as they played with him for what felt like eternity. Hacking into fingers just to elicit a response, tracing the trickle of tears down his face with grimy, disbelieving hands. Often as not, the tears would come as a surprise to them, as would the strangled groans of pain from the tall ghoul. He could feel every minuscule thing they did to him and yet he was powerless to do anything but retreat into his mind and let the pain dissipate, or be present and endure the suffering.

 

Once, there was only one ghoul waiting for him. Thinking of him made Charon's stomach flop queasily, raider-ghoul rabble around him stilling as he remembered the filthy feeling he had afterwards, like the dirt had burrowed under his skin and he needed to flay himself alive just to feel clean again. _That_ ghoul had stuck around too long; the drug wore off and Charon strangled him with his bare hands. Ahzrukhal had swung open the door and burst into laughter at the sight of Charon, bloodied and furious, unbuttoned pants hanging precariously on his hips, with one massive hand still wrapped firmly around the unnamed, naked ghoul's crushed windpipe.

 

“ _That's a bit more of him than I ever wanted to see!_ ” Ahzrukhal chuckled, making Charon snarl and drop the body.

 

“ _Enough_.” The barroom door swung open, and Spoon waltzed into the room. She swept off her hat and bowed ridiculously deep at Ahzrukhal. Surprisingly the sleazy ghoul returned the bow, waving her on.

 

“ _Of course ma'am, he's all yours_.” Ahzrukhal said, nodding to Charon and then leaving _._

 

“ _Kneel, Charon_.” Spoon ordered, her hands on her hips. Charon was powerless to disobey, dropping to his knees and looking up at her in poorly-concealed fear. She took his face in her hands, and then kissed him mercilessly, like she was trying to take the breath out of him.

 

**_Fuck_ ** . “ _Mistress, I--_ ”

 

“ _It's alright, love. You're with me. You're safe. Just relax, everything will be alright. Let **me** carry **you** , for once._” Spoon whispered, smiling at him kindly. The raiders faded to black behind her, everything was darkness but Spoon, _his_ Spoon.

 

“ _I'll always be right here, Charon. I'll do my damnedest to always be here for you, big guy. Even if you're still dreaming, even if it's just a nightmare,_ you shouldn't be alone...”

 

* * *

 

Spoon breathed a sigh of relief when Charon's eyes opened slowly. “Are you alright?” She asked quietly. Charon nodded, looking confused. “You were...yelling. In your sleep. I came downstairs because I thought Jericho was back but...” Spoon trailed off, tightening her grip on the tall ghoul. She didn't really care whether he thought she was being forward or not, the way his body shifted while he slept and the way he had alternated between groaning and crying out had been heartbreaking. She kissed his forehead, then looked down at the worn fabric of his shirt. “I just...I wasn't sure whether you were gonna' be okay if I woke you up, so-”

 

“You sat on me.” Charon finished drowsily.

 

Spoon flushed. “That was just because you were thrashing around! I wasn't trying anything, I swear!” _So much for not caring whether he thinks you're forward. Smooth move, Spoon._ “I didn't want you to hurt yourself, not after all the raider shit.”

 

Charon's fingers twitched and then sought out Spoon's hand on his chest. “I am...I am somewhat battered, I will admit. You wish me to be honest with you. I will be honest. I am damaged.” He seemed to be making a concerted effort to keep his voice calm and level. “I have been passed around a bit. I don't understand how to react to things. Sometimes I have awful nightmares.” The words poured out of his mouth faster and faster, like he was cracking. “I remember things that I've done, or maybe it's not me but things that people around me have done I remember people doing things to me the sleep and the fucking conditioning that makes me want to puke and the white, white walls so fucking _white_ and I just-”

 

“Hey, hey, _whoa_ there big guy. One thing at a time. Take it easy.” Spoon interrupted, immensely worried as Charon's chest started to heave. He dropped his head into the crook of her neck and shoulder, swallowing hard. “Please don't vomit on me Charon. I stain something fierce.” Charon's laugh was choked and forlorn-sounding, but it was something. Spoon took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “I'm glad you told me.” She said seriously. The ghoul shrugged. “No really, I am! I mean, this isn't like the hungry thing where I can just pile more food onto your plate, but shit it's something.” Spoon got to her feet, and stretched out a hand to Charon, her crooked grin firmly in place. “Leave ol' Shotty next to my bed for the night. You can sleep upstairs with me. I'll kick the shit out of your nightmares.”

 

* * *

 

Charon laid rigid on the bed, Spoon fast asleep beside him. A small solar-powered fan hummed quietly in the window, doing almost nothing to alleviate the heat. Charon himself didn't feel it all too much, but obviously Spoon did. She was in a pair of shorts and hole-riddled shirt. However she was the one sleeping, and he was the one left awake to stare at the ceiling and feel every twitch of Spoon's body.

 

_Lord_ , she was a restless sleeper.  _So much for kicking the shit out of my nightmares_ . 

 

Charon snorted at the ceiling. Beside him, Spoon rolled over, pressing her stomach to his side and flinging her leg over his. Charon grunted, attempting to wriggle away and failing miserably. Spoon's hand drifted over the ghoul's chest, tracing languid, unknown patterns across the ragged skin. Charon sucked in a breath, somewhat surprised still. Spoon was attracted to him. Spoon was... _attracted_ to _him?_ It may just be an unconscious reaction from her body and not her mind, but even that was flattering. Getting a positive physical reaction out of someone who wasn't ghoulified was high praise in Charon's book. As ghouls went, he wasn't _that_ bad looking. He still had hair after all, even if it was only a light dusting of it. But as far as human appearances go...

 

_Eh_. He could use a little work. There were better-looking folk just in Megaton, never mind the Wastes. So Spoon finding him attractive was...interesting. Charon carefully wrapped an arm around Spoon's shoulders, and was rewarded when she snuggled into him with a sigh.

 

“ _Charon..._ ”

 

The ghoul bit his lip at the sound of his name. “What the fuck is wrong with you, kid?” He murmured. “You've slogged your way through hell and back for a monster who doesn't even deserve to be _around_ you. I'm surprised you didn't put a bullet in my skull instead of going to trade in dangerous territory to get Ahzrukhal to hand me over. I don't understand you, smoothskin.” Charon grumbled.

 

“I know you don't.” Spoon yawned, making Charon flinch. He had thought she was still sound asleep and he cursed inwardly, wondering how much she'd heard. Spoon stretched languidly. “Luckily I'm not in this for your understanding, otherwise we might be in a jam.” She said teasingly, her voice rough from sleep.

 

The ghoul snorted as Spoon yawned again, her lazy stretching pressing her into his leg and hip. Charon shifted, going to take his arm from behind her shoulders. But she grabbed his hand.

 

“No.” She mumbled. “Stay.”

 

_Stay._ “Spoon...” Charon groaned in exasperation, even as the order spiraled down from his brain to his spine, then settled in his stomach. A low, dull pulse began to pound in his gut and his breathing hitched momentarily.  _Next she'll tell you to sit. Like a good dog. When to come and when to go. What to kill. When to sleep when to fuck when to eat when to_ \--

 

Spoon's eyes fluttered open, staring up at him with an odd expression. He knew he must look like a sight. He hated the way his face stiffened under orders. She bit her lip, worrying the chapped skin between her crooked teeth. “...sorry. I goofed that one,” She whispered finally, “You don't have to stay. You _can_ stay...if you want to, that is.”

 

The throbbing in his back and stomach vanished as quickly as it had begun, leaving Charon reeling. _She picked up on_ _ **that**_ _very quickly!_ His brain screamed in bewilderment. The ghoul untangled himself from her and got up from the bed.

 

* * *

 

Spoon flopped onto her stomach, watching him as he paced in the tiny bedroom. She obviously wasn't going to be getting more rest for a while.

 

“ _Why?_ ” He finally asked, milky blue eyes luminescent in the half-light of the bedroom. Spoon shivered unconsciously. His eyes could be quite...unsettling.

 

“Why what?” She yawned, rolling onto her back and looking at him upside down. Charon's face twisted and for a minute she could have sworn he looked on the verge of tears.

 

“Why me? Why...Why are you like this?” He clarified; slow, careful steps taking him to the bed where he proceeded to loom over the prone woman.

 

Spoon stared up at him, closing one eye as if she were concentrating hard. “Charon,” She began after a long, contemplative pause (during which her heart pounded in her chest wildly because _he's so close to me and we're not in any danger and he could kiss me he's so close_ ) “Why did my parents have me?” Charon's expression was flabbergasted, but Spoon persisted. “C'mon, you've done the deed a few times I'll wager! You know how this works, big guy. _Why did my parents have me_?”

 

He crossed his arms over his chest, studiously avoiding her eyes as he murmured something under his breath that sounded _decidedly_ exasperated before replying, “I don't _know_ , smoothskin. I didn't know your folks. This a trick question?”

 

Spoon sighed. “Allow me to apologize to your delicate sensibilities ahead of time, Ferryfuck Of The River Styx.” She said wryly. The teasing name startled an indignant huff out of the large ghoul, and his arms tightened across his chest. “My parents bumped uglies and, in turn, had me _because they could stand each other_. I gravitate to the people that _I can stand_. I'm not infinitely patient. If you had turned out to be some grumbly prick all the time-”

 

“Beg your fuckin' _pardon_ , smoothskin?!”

 

“--I would have handed your contract off and been done with you. I snagged your contract in the first place because I needed someone to watch my back. It gets lonely out there. I picked _you_ because you seemed like you wanted to escape. You weren't happy. No one would be on a leash that fucking short.” Spoon's hand coasted up the outside of the ghoul's hip, and she wound one calloused finger through the fraying belt loop located there. She tugged Charon closer, staring up at him the whole while. “I didn't even know who you were, but I wanted you happy. I couldn't let you suffer if I could help and you in turn could help me. I'm kind of selfish, y'see.” Spoon's eyes drifted closed. She sat there silently, feeling Charon flex and shift under her hand on his hip as he fidgeted. “Charon?” She murmured, removing her hand after a good long while and still feeling the heat of him on her fingertips.

 

She received a grunt in reply, and a body climbed onto the bed to lay down beside her.

 

“Would you...would you ever bump uglies with me? If I asked really nice, maybe?” She whispered, already half-asleep and feeling vaguely like she ought to be embarrassed by what she just said.

 

A hand cupped her cheek, and she thought a set of chapped lips pressed to her forehead. “ _Sleep_.” Came the rasping voice, a note of warning in it. “You need to heal.”

 

But Spoon persisted, gripping the hand on her cheek. “ _Please?_ ” She knew she was whining, but she was so _tired_...

 

* * *

 

Charon hushed her, carefully running his free hand through her hair in a motion that was all at once familiar and unfamiliar. “I'll tell you in the morning.” He said quietly, biting his lip _hard_ when Spoon sleepily kissed his knuckles.

 

“Hope you say yes...” She trailed off, stretching and humming appreciatively as he continued his ministrations on her hair. The ghoul rolled his eyes, making a shushing sound as best as he could.

 

“Don't you worry about that, smoothskin. It ain't important enough.” Charon only found sleep as the room began to lighten from the dawn.

 

 


	9. Tea-Lavender-Orders-Better

When he awoke, Spoon was gone. The panic that sprang into his chest because _I remember what happened the last time I woke up alone_ was instantly crushed when he rolled over and spotted the note on her pillow.

 

_Dear Charon,_

_Enjoy a day off on me, okay? I left some caps so you can have fun. If you want when I get back we can talk wages and stuff. I'm not exactly sure how all this works with the contract, so you may have to guide me and shit. I didn't really want to ask before because I didn't want to insult you or anything, but I figured if I haven't pissed you off by now, why not?_

 

_Oh! I'm at Moira's. Research stuff. Landmines. The usual._

 

_Love, Spoon_ .

 

A strangled noise fought free from Charon's throat, his eyes fixed on the word. That _one_ word.

 

_Love_ .  _**Love?** _

 

He was going to hyperventilate. This fucking smoothskin was going to kill him. Literally  _kill_ him. Charon flopped back onto the bed, note clenched tightly in his hand as he sucked in a few deep breaths.  _No need to get all...heaving-bosom bodice-ripper here. I can handle this. I can definitely handle this_ , he thought, berating himself for turning into a schoolgirl. She wanted to give him wages. She wrote  _love_ . These sudden equalizers weren't ever going to stop blindsiding him, were they?

 

_She gives me food and freedom, lets me talk and kill as I wish, and now...she wants to **pay me**?_ His mind continued to clamor. Charon grumbled under his breath, striding to his ( _his!_ ) room and swapping out for a cleaner pair of pants and a greyish shirt. He experimentally sniffed both items before donning them, wincing a little self-consciously at the loud whistle from the intake of air through his nasal cavity. His nose had been the first thing to go, and while he didn't miss  _it_ , per se, he missed the normalcy it offered. 

 

Charon shook his head, turning and backtracking to Spoon's bedroom. He stared down at her bed for a long moment, taking in the rumpled sheets and thin blanket tangled up at the base. “ _Wadsworth!_ ” He yelled.

 

“Yes sir?!” The robot responded from almost directly behind him. Charon barely kept from jumping out of his skin.

 

“Jesus fuck, scare the rest of it off me why don't you?” The ghoul snapped. “How does she normally make her bed?”

 

“Ah, Madam _doesn't_ normally make her bed. I usually try to once she's embarked on her next epic quest.” The robot extended its pincers by way of explanation. “The results range from catastrophic to...less catastrophic.” It heaved a mechanical sigh.

 

Charon felt like it would be rude to laugh. He of all people could understand the irritation and _absurdity_ of being a re-purposed killing machine. “Well uh,” He paused to clear his throat. “I'll do my best then.” _Dammit, I am not having a heart-to-heart with a fucking rustbucket_.

 

* * *

 

“He's so _tall_ , Spoon! I mean, how do you _manage?_ ” Moira asked, wide-eyed. “Don't even _try_ to tell me you handle it no problem!”

 

Spoon flushed under her tan, coughing into her cup of suspicious-smelling tea. Across from her at the large table covered in ammunition, Moira sighed and stared at her dreamily.

 

“You're so lucky Spoon. He's so big, I mean his _hands_ \--!” Moira held up her own to illustrate the size difference. “His feet are _huge!_ So lucky. Ugh.”

 

Spoon was certain she was dying. Either from embarrassment or the tea that reeked a fair bit like burnt coffee. “It isn't...I mean, we haven't actually  _done_ anything.” She mumbled. “I don't even know whether he likes me or not, Moira, shit.”

 

Moira gasped in disbelief. “Who could not like a loveable little man-thing like yourself? How could he resist?!”

 

Spoon grunted under her breath, _man-thing my ass_. Keeping up the charade could be difficult when she was at home, but it was still miles safer than revealing the fact that she'd been a woman the whole time. “I dunno Moi, he's kind of...I suppose a nice word for it is stoic. He's not exactly a touchy-feely kind of ghoul like Gob.”

 

“Well clearly you just need to dial up the charm!” Moira said brightly.

 

Spoon suddenly got an insane image of herself in a white sundress with her hair cascading everywhere and  _where the fuck did 'cascading' come from are you shitting me what the fuck is in this tea fuck's sake_ \--

 

“--a better hat maybe, or some nicer pants. Guys are suckers for a nice pair of pants.” Moira continued to ramble.

 

Spoon jerked her attention back around to the conversation at hand, stowing the sundress image away for another time. “No, guys are suckers for pretty girls and boys. Not me, Moi. I'm all grungy...wait. Do you have any soap? Do you sell soap that isn't fucking Abraxo?” Spoon leaned across the table, eyes abruptly intense as she was struck with an idea.

 

Moira gulped. “Um. Yes? I think I have some from the traders, it's uh...lilac or lobelia or something?” She replied weakly.

 

Spoon bolted out of her seat, already fumbling for her caps pouch. “Gimme a bar or two, would you? I'll clean up, shave the face, the whole nine yards. I know you're not supposed to change for people but...” She trailed off ruefully, making Moira laugh.

 

“It's okay if it's for hygienic purposes!” The redhead finished for her, scrambling off to the backroom to find Spoon the soap.

 

...

 

It was lavender soap. Spoon clutched it in her pocket the whole way home, praying that Charon had taken the caps and headed out for a while. “Charon?” She called as she opened the front door, grinning when she got no response. “Wads!”

 

“Yes Madam?” Wadsworth replied, floating carefully down the stairs to where Spoon was stripping off her duster and hat.

 

“Make sure no one comes in. Except Charon, of course. I gotta take a bath.” She explained.

 

The robot's servos hummed. “Certainly Madam! I'll purify you some bath water, shall I?”

 

“Yes please, thanks so much Wads.” Spoon said gratefully.

 

“One is glad to be of service, naturally.”

 

The robot managed to create three decent-sized buckets of lukewarm, purified water before his condensation unit started to rattle. Spoon smiled, folding her clothes beside her tiny bathtub. She unwrapped the soap almost reverently, saving the brown paper for later. Then she poured one bucket into her battered washtub, and hopped in with a quiet squeal at the chillier temperature. Resting her folded shirt on the tub's metal rim and pulling the second bucket close, she carefully leaned her hair back into it. She just sat there for a little while, luxuriating in the feeling of the clean, cool water on her skin. She rubbed her damp, soapy fingers against her scalp with a contented sigh. It was almost enough to lull her to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Charon carefully opened the front door. The sunlight was pouring through the cracks in the walls again, indicating the time to be late afternoon. Wadsworth floated by with a chipper (if oddly quiet) greeting, and Charon found himself _nodding_ to the damn thing before beginning upstairs. He had seen Spoon's duster and hat by the door, so he knew she was home. Maybe napping, if Wadsworth's lack of cheery volume was any indicator.

 

The things in the bag in his hand creaked under the pressure of his nervous grip, and he eased off slightly. _This is a bad idea_ , he scolded himself. Spoon didn't seem the vain type, but the seven small metal beads had sparkled teasingly at him from the merchant's wares and he had bought them without a second thought. “Spoon?” He knocked on her bedroom door, and didn't get an answer. Gingerly, Charon pushed the door open. To his terrified dismay the door ' _squeaked_ ' loudly in protest, making the tall ghoul cringe and feel rather awkward...much less than suave and confident, at any rate. What he saw next though, made him instantly forget how clumsy he felt.

 

_SpoonSpoonSpoonSpoon **Spoon** \--_

 

It cycled through his head like a siren blaring as he stared down at the smoothskin. She had crammed herself into a tiny washbasin, her hair trailing over the side half-in half-out of another bucket next to her. The gentle, all-encompassing scent of lavender still hung in the air, mixed with something that Charon abruptly realized was Spoon's definitive female  _smell_ . 

 

His throat worked against some odd emotion he couldn't name.

 

She was obviously asleep, body curled and face slack against the side of the tub. Charon knelt beside her, feeling almost like he shouldn't be here. But  _oh God he was **here**_ , and he wouldn't trade this moment for anything. A comb lay atop a neatly folded pile of clean clothes on the battered metal floor next to the basin, and it gave Charon an idea.

 

The ghoul carefully began to squeeze the excess water out of her long hair back into the little bucket, unmindful of how wet his clothes were getting as he sat down on the floor behind the basin. He scooted the bucket out of the way to keep her hair from falling back in to the now-dirty water.

 

With shaking fingers Charon started to untangle Spoon's hair. The beads, tucked neatly into their tiny bag, lay beside him until the opportune moment.

 

* * *

 

_Someone is...someone is combing my hair_ , Spoon's mind purred, and she moaned quietly at the feeling that was slowly rousing her from her unplanned nap. “Mmmm, this has to be a dream.”

 

“It can be if you'd like, smoothskin.” A blush seared across Spoon's cheeks and she hunched down in the tub, abruptly awake and rather ashamed of her actions. Behind her, Charon gave a chuckle that made her stomach drop out while continuing to fiddle with her hair. “It's okay. I remember doing this for someone before. Before the...the mental conditioning, I think. Maybe during though. I don't know.” He muttered quietly.

 

“It's wonderful.” Spoon stated bluntly, ignoring the flush that was darkening her shoulders and neck to a sunburned crimson. “Thank you.”

 

They sat quietly for a while, Spoon's ears picking up tiny clinking sounds that made her brow furrow, until Charon sighed heavily. “Look smoothskin, about the wages thing...” Charon began, his fingers hesitating in her hair.

 

Spoon's heart sank. She flopped her arms over the sides of the tub and was startled to meet a leg on either side. She was quite literally nestled between his thighs. Her fingers automatically contracted, leaving wet prints on the fabric of his pants. “Lay it on me, big guy. I can handle it.” She mumbled, knowing that she sounded dejected. _And this is where he asks me to let him go._

 

“Spoon wages aren't...they aren't part of the contract. Normally, the master or mistress provides me with whatever they deem necessary for my survival, and in turn theirs.” Charon paused. “I am not...there's nothing in the contract that says I _can't_ have wages, it's just never been brought up and I don't know how to proceed. I am lost here Spoon.”

 

_Well, that's better than what I thought!_ Spoon thought excitedly, clearing her throat. “Would you rather that you just tell me when you need or want something? Would that be easier for you, contractually speaking?”

 

Charon's arms suddenly slung around her, gripping her from behind in a tight embrace. Spoon tensed up, but then began to relax when she realized Charon was hugging her. “I'll take that as a yes, then!” She grinned. “Whatever makes you comfortable and happy, big guy.”

 

* * *

 

_She's so soft and clean. She smells like lavender, lavender everywhere. What I would give..._

 

Charon nodded against the top of her head, sighing in relief at her agreement. Spoon shifted underneath his arms, half turning so she could return what even _he_ thought was an oddly-enthusiastic hug. She pressed up against his chest, nestling into him. The beads in her hair clicked softly. Charon's breath caught in his throat when she moved to face him; the ghoul instantly shut his eyes and buried his face in her hair with a barely-stifled groan.

 

_You're going to kill me, smoothskin. And I'm not going to mind one bit._

 

Charon eyes shot open when a hand gently touched his face. “You can look, if you'd like. You don't have to hide from me.” Spoon murmured. Her voice was so quiet, with just a tinge of teasing. Charon met her gaze, surprised when he saw nothing but interest and maybe...maybe something more.

 

“Spoon I...” _Don't do this to yourself. Don't do this. 'Us' isn't something that happens to me. 'We' doesn't exist. Master and servant. Employer and employee. I am not an equal. I am not an equal. I--_

 

Charon's mind began to spin in a frantic circle and he crushed her to his chest in a fierce, almost territorial grip. “I'm terrified.” He choked out. “I'm fucked up and I'm broken and I'm so, so afraid. What do I do, Mistress?”

 

_I have never been this scared. I have never felt this way before. It's driving me fucking crazy, it's exhausting, I need guidance, help me Mistress hel **CONTRACT HOLDER GIVE ORDERS CONTRACT HOLDER GIVE--**_

 

* * *

 

Spoon could feel him panicking, his heart racing against her cheek and fingers twitching on her back while his breath came in short, raspy bursts. He seemed to be avoiding meeting her eyes, fixated on a point across the room.

 

“Hey.” Was all she could think to say before gently cradling Charon's face in her palms.

 

His pupils were dilated, alarmingly huge and black behind the faded blue film of his eyes. He had bared his teeth and now his breath hissed in and out through them. Charon leaned into her hands, making her wince with how hard he knocked his forehead against her own.

 

“Breathe for me, please?” Spoon requested finally, somewhat unsettled by the ghoul's sudden silence.

 

Charon nodded sluggishly, licking at the corner of his mouth nervously before replying, “Yes, Mistress.”

 

“Charon, don't...um. I mean. I really wish you wouldn't call me that. You can if you want,” _or if you need to_ , “but I really wish you wouldn't.” 

 

“ _Mistress_.” Charon practically _purred_ the word, and Spoon was ashamed of the delicious shudder that ran up her spine at his tone. “Why did you write love on your note?”

 

“Um.” Spoon suddenly felt much more naked than her state of current undress could attest to, the ghoul effectively pinning her with the weight of his question. She shrank back in her now thoroughly cooled tub, muttering a swear when Charon followed. One of his hands ' _plunk_ 'ed into the tepid water (narrowly missing her leg), the other braced on the side as he shifted his body into a crouching position.

 

“Mist-- _Spoon_. Why?” The predatory look on his face fled, something softer taking its place. He was begging now, and it made her feel like she was wallowing in guilt.

 

“Because I care about you, you giant fucker.” Spoon mumbled, looking down in embarrassment while she began to blush bright red. “Shut up, don't you dare tease me. Oh God-” His mouth pressed to hers, swallowing whatever else she might have said. A fantastic static in Spoon's mind took over, her own breathing sounding so loud. _He's kissing me. He's_ _ **kissing**_ _me!_ “Wow, Charon...” She managed when he finally drew back.

 

She was unprepared for the low, drawn-out groan that issued from him.“ _God,_ smoothskin.” The sudden heat that pooled in her abdomen was almost enough to make her shiver. Charon leaned in again, firmly planting his arms in the water on either side of her body. He seemed to be hell-bent on kissing her breathless, and Spoon was happy to oblige. 

 

* * *

 

Precious smoothskin, he was precious  _to_ this smoothskin, and that thought alone had Charon moaning into her mouth. Spoon made noises of her own, hers shyer than his but no less genuine for their lack of volume. “You...care for me?” Charon murmured finally, heartened by her enthusiastic response to his kisses.

 

Spoon nodded wildly, flushing and drawing her knees up to her chest. Well, closer to her chest, anyway. She was already almost folded in half in the tiny tub. Charon dared to put a hand on her shoulder, still shocked when Spoon didn't pull away. She practically did the opposite, tugging on the hem of his shirt. “Please?”

 

Charon hesitated for a minute. “It...it ain't that pretty smoothskin. I don't want to...uh. It might be easier if I just left my shirt on?”

 

_It'll scare you. I'm ugly as fuck, smoothskin._

 

His fumbling words hung in the air between them for a minute before Spoon huffed out a frustrated breath. “I want to see you, if you'll let me.” She said carefully, her hands now just resting on his shirt hem. “I understand if you don't want me to see, but _please_ don't leave it on if you're worried about what I'll think.”

 

Charon swallowed hard. “H...How can I  _not_ be worried, Spoon? It's no secret you're damn important to me already. Not because you're my...my mistress, but because you take care of me like no one ever has. And...and I'm gonna' sound like a giant bitch if I let this train keep rolling.” He grumbled.

 

“Well, it's just me here. And you know I don't give a flying fuck.” Spoon grinned, “Spill it, you big bitch.”

 

Charon snarled halfheartedly, the noise dissolving too quickly into a wry smile to be anywhere near effective. He settled for peeling his shirt off instead of continuing his train of thought. The way Spoon's cheeks reddened was _incredibly_ gratifying.

 

* * *

 

“Well?” The giant ghoul rumbled.

 

Spoon picked her jaw back up, inching forward in her tub. “Can I...?” She trailed off, looking up for permission. She saw some kind of internal struggle quickly get snuffed out before Charon nodded.

 

“Just...slowly.” He warned, an odd note in his voice. “Last thing you want is a residual kicking in and me snapping your wrist off 'accidentally' because I think you're trying to steal my damn dinner tray.”

 

“Yes, _sir!_ ” Spoon tentatively reached out her hand, hearing (and feeling) a deep inhale as she made contact with the taut skin of Charon's chest. “This okay?” She asked, waiting for the nod before she continued with her other hand. Fingers splayed on Charon's ragged skin, questing curiously across the unfamiliar terrain that was her ally, partner, and perhaps even more than that. The ghoul hissed out a breath through his teeth. His fists clenched and unclenched in the water on either side of Spoon. Spoon looked up with a thoughtful frown. “You can touch me too, y'know.” She said quietly. “I really wouldn't mind it one bit.”

 

“That's...it's alright?” Charon asked thickly, his hand on her thigh almost before he had finished speaking.

 

“You trust me, I'll trust you.” The woman answered simply, rising on her knees out of the tub. She fidgeted as Charon stilled. It _was_ a rather small tub. But that thought fled her mind as the ghoul's fingers skimmed up her sides, making her squeak with the light touch. His hands were shaking somewhat as she carefully cupped them in her own. “Hey, big guy?” Charon's eyes snapped up to hers, his expression dazed. Spoon smiled gently at him. “Are you okay, Charon?” 

 

He held her close again, nodding into her neck. There was silence for a few minutes while Spoon let herself be embraced. “I'm actually...I'm a lot better than okay, smoothskin.”

 


	10. Claw-Leg-Barricade-Tolerate

Charon had no idea how their plans always managed to go so wrong. This was the fucking super mutants all over again. A deathclaw. _A deathclaw!_ They had been sent to clear out a group of raiders that kept harming the Brahmin of a nearby settlement, how the _fuck_ had they even managed to stumble into its nest?

 

_They aren't exactly creatures known for tidy areas!_

 

Spoon stood beside him, just as motionless as he was. The deathclaw (Charon would take a stab in the dark and say that it was probably the mother deathclaw) stood horns, head, _and_ shoulders over Charon, nostrils flaring as it sampled the air suspiciously.

 

_Don't move smoothskin, for the love of God please don't move._ Charon silently begged, praying that the creature's poor eyesight would let them escape unscathed. Most of his other employers had hardly ventured outside once they'd acquired him, never mind  _actively_ seeking out trouble. Charon had never faced a deathclaw and he wasn't sure if he was up to the task. 

 

After several overly-tense moments, it seemed they would be alright. But then, the deathclaw gave a loud snort as it turned to retreat back into its den and Spoon flinched at the noise.

 

All hell broke loose.

 

That cold, calculating chunk of Charon's brain took over as the deathclaw sank its massive talons into Spoon's leg. The ghoul felt a panicked shout bubble in his throat when Spoon screamed in pain; horror and the sick, tearing noise momentarily freezing his limbs before he wrestled himself back under control.

 

_**Spoon!** _

 

_Protect contract holder._

 

The combat shotgun thundered deafeningly loud in his grip, pellets spraying point-blank into the deathclaw's side and making it roar angrily. Charon snarled in reply, pressing his advantage as Spoon crumpled to the ground. Blood had never interrupted his killing phase, but seeing Spoon covered in it made him abruptly nauseous and furious at the same time.

 

“I'll fuckin' _skin you!_ ” Charon seethed, practically nose-to-chest with the deathclaw as he pumped a round into its thick hide and dodged the swipe of razor-sharp claws. The creature latched its jaws onto Charon's armored shoulder, making the ghoul grunt in pain and fire another shot into its stomach. 

 

He curled his free hand into a fist and slammed it into the deathclaw's jaw over and over, hearing a snap and wondering faintly whether it was his hand or the jaw. His brain screamed an endless cycle of  _ contract holder contract holder contract holder _ \--!!

 

Charon felt something in him shatter like glass under the stress and pain, a mental explosion. His hip ached from where he'd braced his shotgun and his fingers cramped in his fist from constant hammering _andandand--_

 

His brain went quiet for a moment in the midst of the chaos.

 

_ Protect  **Spoon** . _

 

It wasn't a command. It didn't scrape at the insides of his skull, or turn his stomach like an Institute order.

 

_Was that...is this me?_

 

The deathclaw's teeth dug and tore at his shoulder and Charon couldn't choke back the shout that ripped out of him when he  _ finally _ disengaged from the hulking beast. He jabbed his shotgun upwards into the deathclaw's neck and just fired in a frenzy until he shot the drum dry. 

 

Charon swayed on his feet as the creature slumped to the ground, its head reduced to a bloody pulp. He was dimly aware that this was the most  _ frothing _ rage he'd ever been in and now he had no way to expel it. Everything in him was white-hot and he'd lost too much blood to just sit down and deep-breathe his way through it safely. He ripped the empty drum out of his gun with one savage motion and slapped a fresh one in, cocking the still-smoking gun in the next breath. Then he kicked the deathclaw's corpse to the side, stepped into the cave and swung the barrel of the shotgun into the first egg he saw. 

 

Pulling the trigger as an afterthought, the ghoul blindly stormed his way through the numerous clutches of eggs. Crushing them with his punches and kicks as much as his gun, he finally reached the end of the cave and stood there for a moment, chest heaving and throat sore from screams that he didn't recall making. His broken knuckles trailed blood from the sharp edges of egg and impacts with the deathclaw's hide mere moments earlier.

 

Charon ground his teeth and began to wipe some of the egg sac off his mangled hands, forcing himself to think about where they were and where they might be secure enough to take care of Sp--

 

_ Oh God, Spoon. _ The fury petered out of the overlarge ghoul as he staggered back out of the den and knelt in the bloody dirt surrounding his partner. He had to swallow two or three times before he could speak. “Spoon?” He managed, rolling her onto her back.

 

The scream that came out of her was unexpected and Charon jolted at the volume of it.

 

* * *

 

Spoon heaved in a shuddering breath after her scream, gasping and then gritting her teeth against the pain. _My_ _ **leg!**_

 

She made the mistake of propping herself up and looking down at the damage. The Sugar Bombs she'd eaten that morning threatened to make a reappearance. Charon was on one knee beside her, looking infuriated and frantic at the same time. Spoon moaned in agony, pressing her fists to her eyes and falling back into the dirt. Her leg was gone, sliced clean through above the knee and lying off to the side of her. What was left attached to her was bleeding too heavily for her to think straight. “Oh God, Charon, Charon...” She babbled helplessly, “this is h-how I fucking die, I'm so sorry--”

 

“No no _no_ it's _not._ ” Charon growled, tearing off one of his belts and cinching it tight enough to hurt faintly around her thigh. A Stimpack jabbed quickly onto the area beneath the belt.

 

Spoon shook her head, feeling the panic well up. “I c-can't...holy shit big guy, so much blood-”

 

“I'll carry you, it'll be okay.”

 

“Charon d-don't _carry_ m-me! What if-”

 

Her chin was suddenly caught in a vice-like grip and Charon's gaze, roiling with emotion, held hers. The order didn't seem to phase him. “ _ I can't lose you, _ ” He grated out, “so let me fucking  _ help! _ ” The ghoul sucked in a breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “I'm going to find a car and we're going to sit next to it. We're going to irradiate the fuck out of you and see if Moira's trick is the real deal.” He said finally, struggling to his feet and gathering Spoon up.

 

The world was graying out at the edges for Spoon, and she giggled a little too hard. “T-taking care of me as always, eh big guy?” Something dribbled down her cheek and she looked up, catching sight of his mangled armor. “Oh God Charon, oh no...your poor shoulder...”

 

“ _Fuck_ my shoulder, smoothskin!” Charon exploded, silencing her. His breath came in huffing, angry pants as he continued walking. He shifted her weight to one arm after a moment, using the thumb on his now-free hand to wipe off the blood that had dripped onto her face.

 

Spoon half-lidded her eyes, feeling her cheeks heat weakly as he stared down at her with a strange expression on his face. “You in there...?” she asked when he finally looked away. Charon grumbled something under his breath, making Spoon smile. It was several minutes before she spoke again, the dizzy feeling unsettling her immensely. “Charon...if...if something happens to me, what will you have to do?”

 

The tall ghoul stiffened, fingers digging into her leg and arm. “I am not having this conversation right now. You're going to be alright, smoothskin.”

 

“But what if I'm not? What...What if I have to haunt you endlessly be-because you never told me what would ha-happen afterward?” Spoon pressed, raising her hands and waving them around in what she hoped was a spooky fashion.

 

“I could live with that.” Was all Charon said in reply though, his eyes thoughtful as he stared over her head.

 

“I understand that you'd have to take the c-contract, but,” _**Fuck**_ _this hurts. If I get out of this I'm blowing that fucker's den sky-high with grenades_ , “What's keeping you from just hanging onto it yourself?” _Oh god, bad question, terrible question holy shit. This is where I get eaten alive_ , her brain screamed as Charon slowly looked down at her with a thunderous expression. “Uh. Never mind.” Spoon backpedaled. “I just. I need something to talk about so I don't focus on the fact that my leg was ripped off. I'm sure you understand.” She finished with a laugh that sounded too high in her ears.

 

“What were some of your favorite westerns, and why?” Charon grunted after several minutes, his face smoothing into a neutral look. “Tell me about them. I never watched any. Too many horses for me.”

 

“Yeah, I remember.” Spoon said, giddily realizing that she actually _did_ recall him saying that.

 

* * *

 

Her voice was a soothing background noise to him, telling him about Roy Rogers and Fess Parker while intermittently taking sips off a canteen they filled in an irradiated puddle. Charon vaguely recalled a singing cowboy and that damn pony of his. He felt sometimes like that damn four legged fuck did all the work out of the two. He couldn't remember why horses unsettled him so much. Maybe it was because they were huge, like Brahmin, but smarter.

 

It didn't matter. As long as she was talking, she was breathing. And as long as she was breathing, he was hers.

 

Charon hadn't been able to help the shudder that had gone through him when she asked what would happen to him if she died. The notion of her haunting him was only barely laughable. She was already going to haunt him. Every day since he had braided those small beads into her hair haunted him.

 

Charon wasn't an idiot. He knew that he was well beyond the point of healthy employee and employer attachment. Shit, he may have skipped the ' _healthy_ ' part outright and plummeted straight into ' _how the fuck do I make this work_ ' territory.

 

She let him touch her. She'd seen most of him, fucked-up skin and all...and she still seemed to want him. The next day had been torment as he'd tiptoed around her, not sure what to do in this situation. His pussyfooting didn't seem to upset her; she'd left him alone for the most part and he had a weird feeling that their interaction may have been a fluke. Maybe her water hadn't been purified enough and she'd had rad poisoning. What if she'd been drinking beforehand and didn't actually know what had happened? Spoon hadn't acted any differently towards him and it was confusing as fuck.

 

Charon groaned internally as he remembered all the damn fool traders she swindled out of their caps with a well-placed arm touch or that cheesy showman's grin. What if that's all he was? Just another sucker?

 

A barricade of cars stacked on top of one another caught his eye, and he quickened his steps. If there were raiders they were fucked, but the lack of fire in the encroaching twilight set his mind at ease. Charon abruptly noticed that Spoon had fallen silent, and looked down worriedly. Her eyes were still open but  _fuck_ , was she pale. “Not much further, Spoon.” He rasped. 

 

She focused on him, offering a wan smile that only worried him more. “Okay.”

 

The only raiders were already dead, and Charon could feel the low hum of radiation from at least two of the vehicles. Carefully he set her down on the hood of one of the crushed cars, dropping her pack on the ground next to him and grunting when the fingers of his right hand made a snapping protest against the motion. “You still have your reserve water? I don't know how hard this car is still cranking out. It's been here a while.”

 

“Bottom of the bag. C-Can you grab me a Bloodpack? Maybe another Stim too.” Spoon asked, wincing as she slid further back so she could lay down. Charon 'tsk'ed, sitting her up again.

 

“You know laying down is a bad move, smoothskin. You fall asleep like that, you're fucked.” He scolded, ashamed of how relieved he felt when she rolled her eyes at him.

 

“Pipe down you overlarge fucker, and g-gimme a Stim already. Then t-take off your armor so I can see your shoulder.” She demanded.

 

Charon felt a tremor jolt through his body at the order and then...nothing.  _Huh_ . _**That's** never happened before._ Cautiously, he continued not obeying for a few seconds more, hiding it by digging around in her pack aimlessly.  _Weird_ , he thought, finally picking up the things she asked for and handing them over one by one. “My shoulder will be  _fine_ smoothskin. The rads are doing their work on me, see?” he assured her, tugging his battered armor to the side and showing his muscle already starting to patch and weave its way back together.

 

Spoon grimaced as she started to drink from the gallon of rad water. “I'm going to have to piss like a fucking racehorse when this is over with.” She complained. Her cheeks were already pinking back up, proof that the Bloodpack and Stim had done their jobs.

 

“Do you have anything to dull the pain? Med-X?” Charon was surprised when she shook her head no.

 

“I might still have a bottle of vodka in the side compartment. That's it though. I really ought to prepare more for these kinds of things.” The smoothskin admitted as Charon uncovered a half-empty bottle and passed it to her. “Jesus Christ Charon, you'll bleed me out faster. That'll thin my blood.”

 

“You don't have anything else in here that would help with managing your pain.” He pointed out.

 

Spoon set her jaw. “I've dealt with it this long, haven't I?”

 

Charon could tell this wasn't an argument he could win, so he simply nodded and began setting up a few mines around their impromptu resting place. Once he was done he started peeling off his armor. His undershirt was punched full of holes and with a resigned sigh he began using it to scrub some of the blood off his gear. The radiation from the cars lapped at the bottom of his consciousness gently, relaxing him to the point that he sat down.

 

“How do you feel, Charon?” Spoon asked, hiccuping at the end of her sentence.

 

Charon looked up, taking in her appearance. He hadn't permitted himself many opportunities to check her over since their confusing bath day almost two weeks ago. He knew his stare was heated but he couldn't bring himself to care.

 

* * *

 

“I feel damn fine, smoothskin.” he said finally. The look that he gave her cut through the acrid taste of rad water and the foggy warning ticks of her Pipboy's Geiger counter. Spoon gulped, not sure why she felt so disappointed when he returned to swabbing the blood off his armor. Her stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the dimming pain.

 

“You grow anything yet? Or are we fucked?” Charon asked, spitting onto his shoulder plate and scrubbing at it with the cloth.

 

Spoon shrugged, loosening the belt around her thigh. Charon's eyes shot back up at the ' _clink_ ' of the buckle. “Sheesh, jumpy.” Spoon teased, sliding the belt off and holding her breath. No blood spurted out of the end of her thigh and she grinned in relief, her hysteria manifesting in a squeak of laughter. “Whew! Well, worst comes to worst I'll get a badass robot leg instead.”

 

“Jesus _fuck_.” Charon growled, tossing his armor to the side and getting to his feet.

 

“Uh-?” Spoon began as the ghoul sauntered to the car, caging her in with his arms when he leaned over her. “Charon?”

 

He made a low noise in his throat, closing in and pressing his forehead to hers. “Don't... _don't_ do that to me again, smoothskin.” He murmured after a few tense seconds. 

 

“Do what?” Spoon asked, genuinely confused. Charon groaned, pulling her into his chest and hugging her tightly. _Oh...I scared him_ , she realized. _Wait, **I** scared **him**?! Holy fuck_. “I'm sorry.” 

 

“If my employer dies, I have to take the contract from them and give it to the next person I see. It could be the person who killed them. It could be a random trader.” The ghoul drew a shaky-sounding breath. “I cannot 'hang onto' my own contract. The longer I keep it, the more severe the mental backlash is. I..I am content. I do not wish to leave you. You have been kind to me. You tolerate my touching. But it's not wise to be this attached to you. I distanced myself so I could keep you safe; so I wouldn't be distracted when I watch your back.”

 

“'Tolerate?!'” Spoon squeaked, pieces falling into place in her brain. _I thought I had overstepped his boundaries when he avoided me the next day! I'll admit my pride was a little wounded and I was embarrassed with the way I acted, so I figured I'd save us both the trouble and pretend like it didn't happen. If only a certain someone didn't make it so fucking difficult to forget...!_

 

“It didn't work. I am still distracted, maybe even more so.” Fever-hot fingers cupped her chin, tilting her face up to meet his eyes. She flushed at the intensity of the look, fixing her eyes on his shoulder instead. “Hey,” His voice held a note of pleading, “don't hide from me. Not now. When you talked about haunting me...I don't think you understand the things I'm already haunted by, smoothskin.”

 

“I really tore you up, huh?” Spoon said sheepishly. Charon nodded, seeming like the action itself offered him some relief. Spoon threw her arms around him on a whim, nuzzling into his chest. “We're fucking morons, big guy.”

 

The startled bark of his laughter was like music to her, and she joined in.

 

...

 

Spoon was horrified on a low level when she woke up from a relatively restful (if a little nauseous) night to a brand new, semi-functional leg. No other appendages had appeared and for that she was grateful, but the muscles in her leg felt like she'd never used them before.

 

She hobbled around the camp, swiping a new boot off a dead raider that was almost her size and struggling to put it on. Charon chuckled at her frustrated motions, offering to hold the bag of Radaway while she tapped into a vein. “I swear to God, if anything worse than the _standard_ Radaway headache or upset stomach happens I'm blowing my fucking brains out.” Spoon swore when she was done, looking up at the ghoul with narrowed eyes.

 

Charon shrugged. “Smoothskin, even if you went full ghoul you'd be attractive to me.” His tone was nonchalant.

 

Spoon was flabbergasted. _Jesus Christ_. “You say the nicest things, Charon.”

 

“Technically I'm high as a kite right now, Spoon. The radiation makes you sick, but it throws me for a loop.” He grinned down at her. “I feel great, you look great, I protected you yesterday and we're fucking alive. My shoulder's good as new, my hand bones have cracked back into place...what's not to like?” His face darkened. “Do you think those settlers knew it was a deathclaw killing their Brahmin?”

 

Spoon's heart sank. _There was no way they could have mistaken raider slaughter for deathclaw slaughter. Bullets versus claws? I mean, even knives don't slice like those talons._ “I don't know, Charon. We'll have to see. I guess we'll prep for the worst, and hope for the best. All that jazz.”

 

Charon nodded in agreement, but his brow stayed furrowed. Spoon chewed her lip thoughtfully as she re-packed her rucksack and Charon polished off a few cans of Cram. The freshly-filled rad water jug plopped like a rock into the bottom of her pack.

 

“Remind me to thank Moira when we get back. I guess letting her twist my DNA 'like a kitten with a ball of yarn' was a good thing after all.” Spoon grimaced as a headache started to pound in her left temple. “Ah, right on time.”

 


	11. Sidestep-Kiss-Safe-Over

Spoon insisted on butchering the dead deathclaw and taking the meat with them. Charon could feel his happy-go-lucky rad-induced attitude starting to slip away, and it relieved him. He'd said too much when he was content and he definitely wasn't at his fighting finest when he was in a goddamn euphoric fog. He kept his shotgun ready, scanning the horizon for threats while Spoon peeled the hide off the corpse.

 

“I'm definitely taking these claws with me.” She said finally, tugging down the bandanna she'd used to protect her airway from the rather rank smell of the dead animal and scrubbing the blood off her hands with some clean dirt. A dribble of snot from not breathing through her nose trailed down her face and Charon couldn't hold back a snort of laughter.

 

“What? Aw ew, _ew_.” Spoon groaned, wiping her nose on her bandanna and shooting the still-grinning ghoul a dirty look. “It's not funny!”

 

_You look good no matter what, smoothskin. But goddamn, do you look wonderful when you want to knock my teeth in_ . “No, of course not.” Charon agreed, making her huff in annoyance. 

 

Spoon yanked her old boot back on, the remnants of her bloodied pant leg dragging in the dust as she stood. “I don't care, it fits me so I'll keep wearing it.”

 

She seemed defiant, and Charon shook his head. “You don't have to rationalize to _me_ , Spoon. You know that.”

 

“Yeah...” Spoon shakily stood on her tiptoes and patted his shoulder. “Let's go, big guy.”

 

“Lead the way, smoothskin.”

 

* * *

 

When the leader of the settlement pulled a pistol on them, Spoon was hardly even surprised. It wasn't a settlement, it was a trap for her. Everyone knew about ' _The Lone Wanderer and his seven foot tall ghoul_ ' thanks to a certain loud-mouthed radio DJ, and the bounty for her from the Talons must be pretty ludicrous if they were willing to set up a  _fake_ camp next to deathclaw territory.

 

Charon, without a word from her, grappled with the man and snapped his arm like a twig. “Anyone else want to try? Anyone else want to get beaten by the  _zombie?!_ ” Charon roared as he stood over the man, teeth bared.

 

_Oh he's pissed_ , Spoon gulped as another man came at her with a knife, and she slammed the butt of her rifle into his head after sidestepping his blade almost without thinking. Then, there was no time to think after Charon issued his challenge, mercs on them like feral ghouls.

 

Spoon soon found herself back-to-back with seven feet of snarling, swearing ghoul, a grin on her face as she heard him holler, “Watch out for the  _rotface_ , you cowardly  _pricks!_ ” 

 

“My _ghoul!_ ” She yelled proudly over the din. 

 

Charon's body stiffened for a moment, and then a low rumble from his chest indicated his approval of Spoon's claim. Spoon's grin widened when he answered, “My...smoothskin.”

 

* * *

 

Charon couldn't help the sound that came out of him when he heard the small scavenger call him hers in the middle of the brawl. Her ecstasy was tangible when he replied in kind. He knew he must look like a maniac, cheesing from ear to ear while slaughtering a group of poorly-organized men. There was no helping it, though. The two of them could anticipate each others movements seamlessly, a literal dynamic duo of guns and fists against the pitiful horde that clashed with them.

 

They finally stood victorious, hardly a scratch on either of them. Spoon smiled up at him, looking thrilled. That smile seemed to sing through his blood, his bones. Charon dropped his gun and swept her up, pressing her into the wall of the shack. He groaned into her neck, his codpiece feeling too small with her up against him. “ _Fuck_ smoothskin, you can't  _do_ that.” He admonished, “Not in a fight. Christ. You'll kill me.”

 

“Scold me later, okay?” Spoon breathed, her fingers framing his jaw as he easily held her. “Are you hurt at all?”

 

“Scrapes. This old hide is tough.” Charon smiled down at her. “You?”

 

“I'm fine, thank you.” Spoon looked at his mouth, then back to his eyes. “Could I...?”

 

“ _Yes_.” Charon growled, surprised when she slid her hands to the back of his neck and carefully tugged him down to her like he was delicate. The kiss was soft, quiet. Which was great in its own right, but...“You're not gonna _break_ me, smoothskin.” He protested when she pulled away.

 

Spoon shrugged, her flush back. “I don't really know what I'm doing. I thought it was okay.”

 

“We kissed before...wait, what do you mean 'I don't know what I'm doing'?!” Charon's voice threatened to crack as the realization hit him. _Oh my god, what if she's never kissed anyone else except me. Holy **fuck** she's never kissed anyone except me._ “Fuck's sake Spoon, you could have let me know.” He grumbled, tucking a lock of her hair back behind her ear.

 

“It's embarrassing!” Spoon blurted, “I can fight and smoke and drink but I wasn't kissed until you came along? Shit Charon, I'm an adult in an adult body over here.”

 

“...please tell me you've at least fucked before? Someone's given you a roll in the hay, right?” The relief he felt when she nodded was short-lived.

 

“I've never come though, so I don't know if it counts. At least I don't think I have? I don't really know what it feels like, so my frame of reference may not be that great.” Spoon bit her lip.

 

_She was so shy about the kissing and then **this**? Jesus **Christ**_ . Charon felt like all the air in his body had been knocked out by a massive punch. He was suddenly aware of the heat he was putting out, and the smoothskin's legs wrapped around his hips. “Smoothskin, that's not normally information you'd volunteer.” He pointed out weakly.

 

She rolled her eyes. “I want you to know what you're getting into, Charon. I'm probably not the best in bed and I don't want to disappoint.”

 

Charon closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to be as patient with her as she had been with him.  _Smoothskin, how can you even say this stuff. As if the only thing I want is to get you into bed so I can 'test you out' or something._ “Smoothskin...I'm a fucking  _ghoul_ , okay? That doesn't make me quite as desirable as I used to be, what with the missing skin and all. But I don't 'hook up' with people loosely, smoothskin  _or_ ghoul.” He said slowly, trying to be as clear as possible. “Ahzrukhal rented my 'services' out to a lot of people. It's fucked with me, and I don't know whether I'll...I don't know how non-ordered intercourse would go. So I mean, if we're gonna talk about someone being bad in bed...” Charon trailed off, grimacing.

 

Spoon looked upset, and he felt like he ought to apologize. She waved off the stammered ' _sorry_ ' as he let her down to stand regularly, her 'upset' quickly turning to 'infuriated'. Spoon stood up on her tiptoes, making Charon bend down so she could drag him in for another kiss. 

 

“Don't...” Her voice shook. “Don't ever say that about yourself, okay?”

 

_Kiss._

 

“I mean it's one thing for me. I've had a relatively easy life. Me being bad in bed is more funny than anything else.”

 

_Kiss._

 

“You've had the shit kicked out of you; you've been passed around and treated like an animal.”

 

_Kiss._

 

“You being ordered to do things you don't want to is _never_ a light matter. And if...I mean, if we try to do uh, something, and you can't? Then we'll stop.” Spoon murmured, her tone matter-of-fact. 

 

Charon realized that he had hoisted her up against him again, wondering when that had happened. “Just like that?” He asked, closing his eyes when she began pressing those damn kisses up his neck.

 

“Yeah. It'll be a mutual thing, okay?” Spoon mumbled against his skin. Charon barely suppressed a tremor at the feeling.

 

“I'll be careful with you, smoothskin.”

 

“I'm not worried about it, big guy.”

 

* * *

 

Spoon laid out on the bed, smiling at Charon encouragingly. “I figured we could start with undressing each other? It's safe enough, we've kind of already done it.” Charon's eyes met hers and then darted away. The ghoul fidgeted in the doorway, making Spoon's smile falter. “Are you alright, Charon?” She asked, not expecting the strange-sounding whimper that he made. “Hey...” She soothed, scooting out of bed and running to him. “Hey it's okay. It's alright. Shh, it's alright.”

 

“I'm fucking _terrified_ ,” Charon croaked, “what the fuck is _wrong_ with me?” He hid his face in his hands. “What the fuck, Spoon. I've kissed you, I've held you. What the fuck is wrong with me, why am I so scared?”

 

Spoon carefully pulled his hands down, proceeding to kiss the knuckles on his left hand. Charon's breathing stuttered. “Tell me what's going on, Charon.”

 

He made a noise in his throat that sounded like a sob. “F- _Fuck_ , smoothskin, what do I do?”

 

“Is it because this is planned, instead of spontaneous? Because it's here in front of you and you _have_ to focus and over-focus on it?” Spoon asked.

 

Charon's brow furrowed. “I don't...I mean, that makes sense smoothskin. I just don't know. _I_ know I'm not in any danger, but half my skull is calm and the other half is screaming bells and goddamn whistles.”

 

“What does the calm half want?” Spoon softened her voice. “What does it ask for?” She held her breath when Charon cupped her face in his hands.

 

“It wants... _I_ want everything. Everything you can give me. I'm a greedy son of a bitch, Spoon. You bought my freedom. You put food into me when I was starving. You patched me up when I was bleeding out.” Charon closed his eyes for a second, seeming to gather his thoughts. “I want to make _you_ feel good.”

 

Spoon started unbuttoning her shirt, reaching behind Charon and closing the door as an afterthought. He took his hands off her, watching warily. “What are you doing?”

 

“Trying to feel good.” Spoon replied. _I can't fix everything, big guy. But let me try_. “This is what I do when I'm safe and happy.”

 

“Fuck.” Charon's reaction was really all the gratification she needed. Spoon considered anything else after this point to be a bonus.

 

She folded her shirt and dropped it on the floor, doing the same with her pants moments later. Spoon then knelt in front of Charon in nothing but her underwear, her heart pounding in her chest as she smiled up at him encouragingly. _God, the way he looks at me_.

 

Charon seemed frozen, the only thing moving was his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. A nervous gesture, not hostile. He finally seemed to snap out of it; Spoon could feel the heat radiating off of him. “Smoothskin...Christ.” Charon breathed, crouching so they were eye-to-eye. “You make me so fucking _hungry_.”

 

Spoon gulped, hoping it was too quiet for him to hear. “Hungry?”

 

He nodded, hesitantly reaching for her. “Like I'm fucking starving and you're the banquet in front of me. Will I get my ass handed to me if I try to take some? Do I even care anymore?” The ghoul rumbled, carefully pushing her back to lie down. He crawled over her, still fully-clothed and staring with wide, unseeing eyes. “Can I have it? _Should_ I? Will I fucking _take_ it? No, never.” Spoon's breathing quickened as he bent closer. “But would you give it to me, if I tried?” Charon mused, running his fingers through her long hair until he reached the tiny beads braided in. “Would you fight me? Or would you just give in to me? What if I want it and you don't? What if I hurt you? What if I kill you? You've gotta' understand smoothskin, I was probably on a fucking _leash_ for a reason.”

 

“I know.” Spoon's mouth had gone dry. _He's right. He's leaps and bounds stronger than me. He's been fighting for ages. He knows so much more. But..._ “You don't scare me.” Her bold statement seemed to shake Charon out of his blind-staring ramble, the ghoul looking at her like he'd never seen her before. Spoon was surprised herself to find that it was only the truth she had spoken. She wasn't scared of him, even after that little rant. “You're gonna have to try a lot harder if you want me to run.” she continued, unbuckling his first belt.

 

“Jesus Christ smoothskin.” Charon pressed his mouth over hers, hungrily kissing her. Spoon arched up against him, making him groan. “How are you so fucking _brave_ and fucking _beautiful_ and fucking _smart_.”

 

“Just lucky, I guess.” She grinned, laughing when the ghoul rolled his eyes.

 

Spoon had pushed him onto his back and was fighting with his second belt when Charon stilled. “Smoothskin...I uh. It's. Been a while. Since I've even wanted anything like this. I'm probably not gonna' last that long.” His chuckle was nervous. “So, sorry if I blow my load like a teenager.”

 

Spoon felt something throb beneath her fingers and she cursed the complications a simple buckle could cause. Charon sighed out a breath as she struggled with his zipper and yanked it down. Spoon's eyes widened, his brazen words to the raiders so many months ago ringing in her ears.

 

“ _It's all in the skin..._ ”

 

Charon's cock pulsed, tapping against the ghoul's stomach and leaving a smear of precum there. “Spoon uh, maybe this is...” Charon began.

 

“Just a second.” Spoon murmured. Gathering her wits and willing herself to be a little less turned-on, she pressed a gentle kiss to the base of his shaft, earning her a stream of curses and a tightened grip on her shoulders. It was just as gratifying the second time she did it, thumbing across the slick head of his cock as a follow-up.

 

“ _Fuck_...” The ghoul hissed, tilting his head back. “ _God_ Spoon it's been so fucking _long_ -”

 

“You've been so good to me, Charon. Let me be good to you.” She said softly. Spoon wasn't prepared when he groaned and dragged her up to his mouth. His rough cock slid between them, pressing against her stomach and making her gasp into his kiss. “Hmm, I don't know if you'll fit.” She teased, leaning back to make a show of measuring his member against her stomach. “Should I get you off once and then we can try?” Charon was just watching her wide-eyed, swallowing hard every few seconds. Spoon smiled encouragingly at him, unhooking her bra. “Touch me, please?” She asked, “It's less fun by myself.”

 

The ghoul jerkily rolled his hips up against her, scooting himself into a sitting position against the wall. Spoon sucked in a breath, almost startled when Charon began gently kneading her breasts with his hands. “What do you like, Spoon?” He asked in a voice that shook. “H-How can I please you?”

 

“God _damn_ , you could do that for forever and I would not mind one bit.” Spoon sighed, nuzzling his neck.

 

“So like this?” He murmured, cupping her breasts and rubbing his thumbs across her nipples.

 

“ _God_ yes Charon yes _more_.” She begged, rocking somewhat excitedly on his lap. Charon groaned, grinding his cock against her.

 

“What'd I tell you, smoothskin.” The ghoul grumbled, hands leaving her chest and balling into fists at his sides. “Fuck's sake. For fuck's. _Sake_.”

 

“It's okay! Please, I want you to!” Spoon's fingers wrapped around his cock, slicked with spit. Charon swore under his breath, fucking into her hand. “I don't care, okay Charon? Please come for me?” she pleaded as Charon gritted his teeth.

 

“Fuck's _sake_ smoothskin y' can't _beg_ me-” Charon stopped mid-sentence, come spurting through Spoon's fingers and dribbling onto his stomach. The ghoul sucked in a breath and released it in a clearly startled, “ _Uh_.” Spoon kissed him hard, moaning into his mouth. His fingers dug into her hips, urging her against him. “Spoon, you still want...?”

 

“Are you kidding me Charon. Jesus _Christ_. That was literally the hottest thing I've ever seen.” Spoon breathed, holding his face in her hands.

 

* * *

 

Charon pressed his forehead into hers, grinning the widest he'd ever grinned. “Well then, hop on up little lady.”

 

Spoon stood up to take her underwear off, blushing prettily when the slick sheen on them came into view. Whatever Charon was going to say escaped him as he drank in the sight of her fully naked in front of him. “Would it be alright if...?” He trailed off, tapping a finger lightly against her pubic mound.

 

Spoon nodded jerkily, her hands resting on his shoulders. Then she cried out, the sound music to the ghoul's ears as he slid a hand between her legs.

 

“Beautiful...” Was all Charon could muster up, his mind going quiet as he felt how easily his fingers slid against her clit. _Christ_. “Is this alright, smoothskin?” Spoon whimpered, flushing at the way Charon tried to keep from groaning by biting his lip. “So tight smoothskin...” Then, “Such a good smoothskin. You're doing so well, Spoon.” He growled, making her knees quake. “I know my fingers are big. Say the word and I promise I'll stop. I don't want to hurt you.”

 

“I want more, please.” Spoon begged, her hips shuddering with his careful ministrations. “Please please please.”

 

“You're killing me smoothskin, goddamn. You just want all of me right now?” Charon asked, his tone half-joking as he wrapped a hand wet with her slick around his cock, giving himself a few lazy pumps. Spoon keened, watching him hungrily. “I'll take that as a yes. I'll be gentle, _Mistress_.”

 

Spoon covered her face, whether from embarrassment at his teasing or being flat-out overwhelmed Charon couldn't tell. After a few deep breaths, she slowly sank down onto him.

 

Charon hissed out a breath, suddenly unsure of where to put his hands. “ _Shit_ Spoon, you're fucking tight. Too much?” He managed to say.

 

“Mmmm...” The smoothskin's eyes were half-lidded and dazed, her arms draped over his shoulders. “Nope, pretty sure I've got the best seat in the house.” Spoon murmured.

 

Charon's laugh was breathless, quickly dissolving into a moan as Spoon began to ride him. His hands found purchase on her hips, pushing her down as he thrust upwards. “I'll stop. If you need me to.” The ghoul growled, laughing again as Spoon shook her head, brushing her hair back over her shoulders in an act of defiance. Charon carefully twisted a hand into her hair, feeling her tighten around him when he gave an experimental tug. Trusting her to let him know if something went wrong, he slowly increased the pressure. He bent her back, shifting beneath her until she rested on the floor under him, writhing and making noises that shot straight to his cock. Her legs were wrapped around his back, thighs tightly gripping his hips.

 

Her eyes were murder on the ghoul, pupils blown wide in the afternoon light. She looked content and needy all at once; demanding and helpless an enticing mixture on her face. “Don't forget to tell me if something hurts.” Was the last thing Charon said before coaxing her knees up onto his shoulders.

 

* * *

 

Spoon had never felt so thoroughly taken care of in her whole life. Charon fucked with the same fluid motions he fought with, whole body rippling over her in a powerful display. The uncertainty of earlier had been replaced with a purpose and it was very, _very_ obvious. Spoon cried out when he tugged her hair again, loving the delicious shock it sent through her body while he thrust into her. “ _Yes!_ ”

 

“More?” Charon growled in her ear, his voice alone almost as good as his teasing hair-pulls. Spoon tensed her thighs, feeling and hearing the startled exhale from the ghoul above her. “ _Fuck._ Alright, I'm goin'.” He released her legs and slid a hand under her hips, sitting back on his haunches.

 

“ _Charon!_ ” Spoon's voice cracked as the new angle made his cock rub relentlessly against her front wall, the ghoul's breath hitching as she clenched around him.

 

“Good?”

 

“ _Jesus!_ ”

 

“Some people call me that.” Charon grinned, holding her hips tightly and pulling her into him. She could feel every inch, every throb of him and it drove her insane. She arched against him, whimpering and not even caring how loud she was being. Because he was just as loud, vocalizing his approval in her. “You fuck me so damn good smoothskin, Jesus. You're goddamn beautiful, fucking _perfect_.” The swears dropped in his husky voice made Spoon feel like she was on fire. She was impossibly wet and impossibly turned on and _impossibly_ well-fucked and that fucking voice was going to be the death of her.

 

* * *

 

“Fuck me until you're satisfied!” She burst out. Charon's rhythm stuttered for a moment, taking in the way she was moving beneath him and hungrily meeting him thrust for thrust. “Don't stop, please don't stop, you fuck me so good!” Spoon rambled, her hands fisted in her thoroughly messy hair.

 

“ _God_.” Charon rasped, kissing her as hard as he dared. Her lips looked swollen when he pulled away, and he rumbled his approval. Spoon moaned suddenly as she crested, body in spasm around Charon's cock. The ghoul seized up, choking out a groan when she quivered around him. “Fuck--”

 

“ _Charon_...” that blissed-out sigh was all it took to tip the ghoul over the edge, his orgasm making him cry out and shudder while he spilled into her. His arms threatened to give and he quickly dropped to his elbows over Spoon, gasping for air.

 

Her arms wrapped around him and pulled him down to lay on top of her, a breathy moan of contentment escaping Spoon as his body fitted to hers. Charon wheezed, “Okay? Not crushing you?”

 

“Nope.” The woman murmured. Then, “you're fucking amazing, you know that?”

 

“Not so bad...yourself.” Charon replied, smiling against her neck.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Charon...?” Spoon breathed, her heart rate still on its way to slowing down to normal.

 

“Mm.” He grunted, tightening his grip on her. “What, smoothskin?”

 

“Would you have bought my contract, if I'd had one?” The befuddled look the ghoul shot her almost made her laugh. Almost.

 

“Hell no.” Charon growled, stretching his arms out and crossing them behind his head.

 

“What?!”

 

He held up a hand, quieting her. “Let me _finish_ , smoothskin. If Ahzrukhal was the one with your contract? No way in fuck with that two thousand caps bullshit. I'd get your contract out of his cold, dead hands. I ain't a diplomat like you, Spoon.”

 

“I'm really glad that you gave me a chance.” Spoon murmured, wrapping herself around him and tugging the sheet up over them. “When we started out I was pretty sure I was going to irritate you to death.”

 

“Well as you can see,” Charon gestured downwards at the bed, “I've had a change of heart.”

 

Spoon laughed, smiling against his chest. His hand fell to her head and he started stroking her hair. “All it took was a little kindness, big guy.”

 


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The never-before-seen epilogue! I hope you all enjoyed.

Charon yawned, stretching with a low groan. Beside him, Spoon snuggled into his ribs. _Spoon?!_ Charon started, half out of the bed before he recalled what had happened between them. A slow grin crept across his face. _Holy shit, smoothskin._ He relaxed back against her, noticing a tiny notebook clutched in her left hand. _That's_...

 

Charon remembered the little book from when they had been mauled by super mutants. Before they were sneak-attacked by raiders. In the brief interlude when they had fought and then awkwardly flirted. She'd been reading it when he had left to go 'keep watch'. His grin faded. _Something like that can't ever happen again. I won't let it._ Charon carefully, _carefully_ managed to tug the notebook free of Spoon's fingers. A little stump of lead tumbled out when he opened it, and Charon caught it absently with his other hand.

 

_'This book property of Eleanor Grace!'_ screamed the inside of the cover, the Vault-Tec insignia emblazoned over the neat, small handwriting. Charon closed the book a little harder than he intended, quickly putting it on the windowsill with the pencil as Spoon stirred.

 

_Eleanor_ . _Her name is Eleanor._ Charon's head spun. _Eleanor Grace._

 

“Y' can look at it if you want. Nothin' in there's secret.” Spoon slurred through a yawn. “Just my journey log.”

 

Charon fought back an embarrassed wince at being caught so easily, shrugging in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. “It fell open. I wasn't actually looking at it.”

 

“ _Mmhm_.” Spoon hummed, her drowsy look no-nonsense as she took the notebook and pressed it into Charon's hands. “Study up. Test tomorrow.”

 

“Smoothskin...” She was either pretending to sleep or had already passed back out. Charon huffed in exasperation, propping himself up against the metal piping that served as a headboard and gingerly opening the notebook again.

 

_'This book property of Eleanor Grace! Vault 101.'_

 

The first page had a picture glued to it. A man and a woman wearing white lab coats, smiling for the camera. He had to fight the urge to see them as something awful, used and over-used to distrusting scientists.

 

' _Always know that your mother and I love you very, very much, little one. Remember her verse, Rev. 21:6. You are our precious beautiful daughter. Happy birthday, Eleanor_.'

 

The ghoul's throat tightened and he cleared it angrily. _She wanted me to read this, dammit_. Charon leafed through the pages. The first of them were covered with clippings from different books and magazines...maybe even some scientific papers, scaring up a few uneasy echos of the Institute. An Overseer. Stasis pods. The safety and comfort of a Vault-Tec vault.

 

There was a defined part where it became obvious that Spoon-- _Eleanor_ had left the Vault. Heated, young-adult rants about _tunnel snakes_ were traded for blood spattered across one of the pages, now old and brick red-brown against the beaten paper. On the other side was tiny, immaculate writing. Charon's heart clenched as he read the words of an obviously shaken young woman, a terrified girl baptized in the fire that was the Capital Wasteland.

 

_'Dad is gone. The air out here is poison. The light burns. But if I stay down there, they'll kill me. Butch's mom almost got eaten alive by the huge...bugs. They bit me and I don't feel good. My stomach hurts. My arm hurts. Butch gave me his jacket and promised me I'd see him again if I'd stop being such a pussy. I punched him for that. My legs are okay. I can walk. I should walk. Far far far away._

 

_Dad why did you leave me here?_ '

 

Charon flipped ahead a little ways, his stomach twisting when he caught sight of scrawled, capital letters. Silent screaming trailed across the page, a girl's plea to her father who had abandoned her. _'THIS IS WHAT YOU LEFT ME TO YOU DAD I'M BLEEDING I SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT HE DIDN'T KILL ME BUT I WANT TO DIE I FEEL FILTHY WHAT DO I DO DAD WHAT DO I_ \--'

 

Charon shook his head, fighting the nausea that surged in the back of his throat as he hurriedly turned past those pages. _What the hell kind of parent_ _ **is**_ _this guy? Leaving his kid alone in a world like this...Christ._ Next to him, Spoon groaned in her sleep. Charon pulled the blanket up over her, smoothing it across her shoulders.

 

' _I disarmed the bomb! I did it! I spent half the day chewing Mentats and reading all of Moira's old Duck and Cover issues. That, plus what I remembered from James's jabbering about nukes. Guess the old bastard had something to offer me after all. It's weird. For the first time since I was. Well. I felt surprisingly alive with my arms elbow deep in that bomb, clipping wires and listening to Simms hold his breath. Alive but at peace. Out here there seems to be this screaming insanity people mistake for living, the rushrushrush of survival. But today up to my armpits in nuke I realized that not much of it matters. I cut one wrong wire and I'm very very dead. Maybe it was the Mentats but I was alright with it. I just knew that I couldn't fail, that's all.'_

 

_'I got drunk for the first time last night. Vodka burns but apparently it gives me the strength of an angry Brahmin. Jericho was nursing a busted nose come morning, and Gob high-fived me when Moriarty wasn't looking. Poor Nova was tired out from the festivities though, and I 'rented' her for the day so she could get some sleep. It's getting a little more difficult to keep up this male ruse, especially with my hair being how it is, so technically getting Nova's room was a strategic move. I'm still flattered that Nova seems to think I'm a goddamn gentleman either way. But even if I was a guy I don't think I'd do that to Gob. Poor bastard.'_

 

_'The wasteland is so much bigger than I am. The vault was tiny compared to this world I have now. Moira says I'm suffering from depression, but she doesn't understand. I know what depression is. Depression is being trapped in a sunless hellhole, with no one around who actually cares about you. Depression is being used, being left battered and broken in a ditch somewhere. Moira has some jobs for me to 'get me out of the house' and I'll do my best to complete them. She's worried about me. I hate that. She shouldn't worry. I'm fine._ '

 

Charon's brow furrowed and he looked down. Spoon was soundly sleeping against his side. He stroked her hair absently as he continued to read.

 

' _People wonder why I'm Spoon. Not anything special, honestly. I'm not Eleanor anymore, so I picked a different name. One that lets me fit in a little better out here. And yeah, Spoon doesn't have the same impact as 'Murder' when you introduce yourself, but spoons are useful. I'd rather be useful than scary. Also it's unassuming. Who expects a person named Spoon to murder them in their sleep?'_

 

_'James if you're still out there, I'll find you. I want answers, you **fuck**. Why did you leave me in the vault? I'm so lost. Like you always said, I'm too cocky and sloppy for my own good. Is that why you left me behind? Because I'm messy? Or because I was just in the way of your favorite kid, your goddamn Project Purity? I'm punching you in the face when I find you, you selfish prick._ '

 

Charon cocked his head. _Project Purity?_

 

_'Set out from Megaton today to go to..._

 

_I met the Brotherhood of Steel! And I killed a..._

 

_Underworld is so strange! Ghouls everywhere. Winthrop asked me...'_

 

Water had obviously gotten onto the pages at some point, a few of them dried together or smeared. He couldn't hold back his chuckle when he came across the entries involving him.

 

' _I'm finding myself a companion, little book. I've decided that it's lonely as hell out here and extra protection from something terrible happening again wouldn't be so bad. One I've got my sights set on for sure. His name is Charon, like the ferryman of the Styx. He's a big,_ _ **big**_ _ghoul, and he's bored to tears. I don't know why he sticks around The Ninth Circle really. I would ask him but he appears to be under some strict fucking orders. I wonder what Ahzrukhal did to him to have a huge guy like that so pliant. I hope he isn't abusing him. I thought ghouls didn't abuse one another? Out of some kind of mutual understanding that they already have it bad enough? Maybe I've got it all wrong.'_

 

_'Sometimes I catch him looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye. Maybe he thinks I'm trouble. Maybe I irritate him by not being so scared of him. Shit, maybe he just flat-out doesn't like me. It's probably my funny hat. Or how I talk. I wonder if he would try to kill me if I was able to hire him. He's obviously not a giant fan of 'smoothskins'. No one down here really seems to be but I guess I'm tolerable enough.'_

 

_'Wow was I nervous talking business with Ahzrukhal! That ghoul is a goddamn snakey motherfucker. He wants so many caps for that precious contract. I'm going to have to go clear to Rivet to get that amount for the crap that I scavenge. And that's on top of keeping all the scrap metal so I can trade it to Winthrop. This bleeding heart stuff is exhausting sometimes. Still no new leads on James. Fuck it. I hope this is all worth it. I told Charon I'd be back soon. I saw his arms flex, so I know he's at least interested!'_

 

_'The way Ahzrukhal stressed the word “employee” has me colored nineteen shades of curious. Maybe suspicious would be a better word. I feel like there's a lot more going on there than he's letting on. Did he get Charon from slavers? Raiders? Watching Charon hoist Patches like he weighed nothing was a little terrifying. I think I surprised him though. He turned around to head back to The Ninth Circle and his eyes got all kinds of spooked when he saw me there. Touching him definitely used up most of my very limited courage store. He radiates heat like a furnace. It was odd. Are all ghouls that hot? Have to ask Gob. That must be awful.'_

 

_'He's six-ten if he's an inch. The hair he has left is a rusty red color. I think his eyes were blue at one point. Hard to tell with the ghoul film over them. I wish there was more research done on ghouls! I'm so curious about why it happens only to certain people...it's strange. The only weapon I've seen him with is an old combat shotgun. Drum mag-fed, back holster. I've never actually seen him use it though. Normally he just hefts ghouls up bodily to toss them out.'_

 

Charon rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little overwhelmed. His smoothskin didn't miss a trick. “Observant little fuck, aren't you.” He grunted. “I _did_ think you were up to no good. You'd nurse your fucking vodka and just watch everyone in the place. And the weird way people would talk to you and ask for help like you guys were old friends confused me.” The ghoul stroked her hair again, carefully separating out the seven braids. “I think I understand a little better now.”

 

_'Talon Mercs. How on_ _**earth** _ _did I attract them? Took a damned hunk out of my hip too. Good thing I'm not queasy about blood, otherwise I'd be screwed. I've patched myself up as best as I can with what I've got, but it might be a little trickier than I thought getting back to Underworld. Especially with all the stuff in my pack I couldn't pawn off on Flak or Shrapnel. Butch laughed at me for saving up to buy Charon's contract, saying that I was such a pussy. Why didn't I just shoot Ahzrukhal? Even after I explained to him that I was at least slightly trusted in Underworld and I didn't want to ruin it with murder, he didn't understand. I wasn't really all that surprised. He said I was pretty after that though._ _**That** _ _surprised me. He didn't try to do anything about it though, except wink at me and add, “For a little nosebleed like yourself”. Also surprising. The Bitch Butch I grew up with would have jumped at a chance to coerce a decent looking girl to grease his genitals. Maybe since he got out of the vault, he's had more options and it's evened him out? ...oh no, what if he's grown up?'_

 

_'Willow is a goddamn lifesaver! I'd been out of ammo for a little while and my knifework wasn't cutting it (forgive the pun). I was sure I was a goner and then that red-lipped beauty popped the last Talon square in the head. I gave her a pack of cigs for that, and I promised her another before I left. She just rumpled my hair and told me I was the worst tourist she'd ever seen. I went straight to the Chop Shop. In fact, that's where I am right now. Doc Barrows told me Ethyl and Meat can't see through the glass of their prison, but I'm pretty sure they can. I don't mind them though, they seem okay. Glowing ones out in the Wasteland I'd pump full of lead for sure, and I guess a lot of other ghouls would do the same.'_

 

Charon suppressed a shudder. Glowing ones gave him the creeps, and he was pretty sure Barrows keeping them around was a bad move for everyone in Underworld. The pull that they had over the ferals was a little too much like mind control for Charon to be comfortable around them. The few times he had seen them they _did_ look oddly docile, even bored. Not exactly the blood-thirsty, pack-leading 'Pulsers' he was used to.

 

_'Barrows says I lost a lot of blood and my hip is missing a chunk of bone about the size of a golf ball. A Stim would've reset the bone if it was still there. Ah well. I told him not to worry about it, it just 'added character'. He swore at me for that, but he laughed afterward so I think I did good. I've got to get over to The Ninth Circle soon though. I want to make sure Charon knows I'm back before I go trade the rest of my bits and pieces. I want Ahzrukhal to shake in his greasy boots with the knowledge that I'm coming to take his giant buddy away. Hell, this is probably the most proactive thing I've ever done! I'm grinning from ear to ear like some stupid little kid. I wonder if once I get his contract, I can give it to him or something? I'll have to ask Charon about that, once he can talk to me freely. One thing's for sure, I don't want to stick him in a corner like a damn chair or lamp.'_

 

_'What an asskicker! Charon is the man with the goddamn plan not a doubt in my mind about that. It's awful that I can't give him his contract and set him free, but...I'm okay with having him around for a while I think. I've been keeping up this 'man' facade for some time now, just because it makes me feel safer. I never thought...after what happened, I figured I'd never want to be a girl again. But being around Charon makes me want to be okay, if just for a little while. He makes me feel safe. Hopefully writing these things down will help me work them out of my system.'_

 

' _Charon says it's not a problem that I'm a girl. “I don't recall your gender ever coming up in conversation”. Just like that. He's not angry. He fucking carried me home. He helped patch me up. ...I don't know what to do with myself. It's almost a relief that someone knows. At the same time I'm sorry for making his job tougher. Now he has to...to worry about something happening like I have to worry.'_

 

Charon grumbled low in his throat, watching Spoon's chest rise and fall as she slept beside him. _Smoothskin..._

 

He rubbed a hand across his face, feeling a little less exhausted after his long nap. Charon shimmied up to slump against the headboard, his movements sending dust motes spiraling up into the shafts of sunlight that seared their way through the partially-boarded windows. He turned his attention back to the chronicle, patchworked fingers turning the pages slowly.

 

Sometimes there were sketches. Her rifle, the view from what he assumed was the door of Vault 101. A few of him, the muscle groups in his face and shoulders clearly labeled. Charon snorted when he came across a rather _gratuitous_ sketch of himself with his pants unbuttoned, his fingers resting on his belt and the muscles of his legs clearly visible and labeled through his pants. Sometimes he stumbled over words, having to sound them out in his head. Sometimes Spoon's writing was illegible, too small or smeared to read. She had a habit of cramming words together if she was coming towards the end of a page, her loops and lines squashing themselves in a vain effort to make more room. _Have to keep an eye out for extra paper. Don't want her running low_.

 

' _I could have lost him today with those super mutants. I panicked. He could have died. He could have died and I can't fix that. I_ _ **can't**_ _fix that. What the hell am I going to do? I'm already way more attached than I should be but he's been through more than enough! What is_ _ **wrong**_ _with me?! Why the heck did I get so worked up? Jesus. I can't afford to be this way! 'This thing did a number on me' he says like he got love-tapped instead of thrown across the room. Stupid me I'm so stupid! We're okay now but_ _ **God**_ _do I feel like an idiot._ '

 

' _Caring for someone else is weird. It's been ages. I mean yeah Wadsworth Gob and Nova. Moira. Carol. Even Winthrop. Just since James I figured I never would again. Thought it would be easy. Then I met Gob in the bar and I knew I was screwed. He's the first ghoul I ever saw and he was just...he was so sad all the time and it made me so_ _ **angry**_ _. He didn't do anything wrong and yet here's this other guy spitting on his existence! Making him his free labor! I don't understand how people can get away with that. Simms frustrates the hell out of me sometimes because he ignores it. I know he's just trying to keep the peace but_ _ **really?**_ '

 

' _Charon says he's been passed around and that he's broken. I can understand at least one of those things and I'm going to do everything I can to help. I'm tired of pretending we're just partners. We're_ _ **friends**_ _damn it. From the day I followed him tossing out Patches I knew I needed to help. Even while I was getting turned into Swiss cheese by the Talons I understood that failure wasn't an option. I don't have much to live for out here honestly. The allure of finding my dad and punching him in the groin for abandoning me kind of wore off years ago. But if I can keep helping...keep doing what I think is right even after everything else...I don't know. Maybe I'll make a difference. Three Dog talks about me and it's like he's talking about a different person. I can't do great things. I can barely clean my rifle right. I can do_ _ **good**_ _things though. I think._ '

 

Charon closed the notebook, trying to collect his thoughts. He took a deep breath to clear his head and felt Spoon's fingers close around his limp hand slowly, like a reflex while she was asleep. “You're wrong, Spoon.” He rasped, his throat rougher than usual. The smoothskin hummed, obviously not awake. Charon felt his chin quiver a little. “Fuck's sake, you don't even see how _much_ you do, you...you fuckin'...you disarmed a _nuke_ for these people. You're so damn good and you can't even see it, spitting in the damn _face_ of the Talons and raiders and slavers.” He slid down until he was laying beside her again, taking her face in his hands and shakily kissing her forehead. “Christ, smoothskin. Jesus fucking Christ. I told you I'd follow, ' _I will make my services worth your kindness_ '. But I fucking can't. I failed. You've done so much more for me than I could ever...so much awful shit has happened to me and then _your_ contrary ass comes walking in acting like I still deserve to have good in my life.” Charon shook his head in disbelief.

 

“Don' cry.” Spoon murmured, putting a finger over his mouth. Charon hadn't even noticed the tears making their way down his face. “S'okay. No bad dreams. I'm here. Gotcha'.”

 

“Spoon...”

 

“M' here.” She repeated, wrapping herself around him protectively. “Right here. M' gonna' be here when y' wake up. Then we gotta' kill s'more baddies.”

 

“Of course.” Charon tried to smile, wiping at his cheeks haphazardly. “For good or ill, remember?”

 

“How 'bout ' _for quiet an' let Spoon sleep_ ', s'at sound okay?” The smoothskin mumbled, scrunching up her nose when Charon kissed it. “M'poss'ble bigass ghouly-ghoul, stoppit.”

 

“I've been called much worse than that, smoothskin.”

 

_You are my heart. I will be with you always, for good or ill, and I promise I will be worth your kindness_ . _Thank you_.

 


End file.
